t that she meant it. She thought it, even while her heart
was crying out in defense of the man he had maligned.

"How can one know the truth of such a thing?" she went on, unsteadily.
"One can only believe in one's friends."

"Mary," eagerly, "you've known Poole only for a few months. You've
known me always. I can give you a devotion equal to anybody's. Why
not drop all this contrariness--and come to me?"

"Why not?" she asked herself. Roger Poole was obscure, and destined to
be obscure. More than that, there would always be people like Porter
who would question his past. "It is the whispers that kill," Roger had
said. And people would always whisper.

She rose and walked to the end of the porch. Porter followed her, and
they stood looking down into the garden. It was in a riot of summer
bloom--and the fragrance rushed up to them.

The garden! And herself a flower! It was such things that Roger Poole
could say, and which Porter could never say. And he could not say them
because he could not think them. The things that Porter thought were
commonplace, the things which Roger thought were wonderful. If she
married Porter Bigelow, she would walk always with her feet firmly on
the ground. If she married Roger Poole they would fly in the upper air
together.

"Mary," Porter was insisting, "dear girl."

She held up her hand. "I won't listen," she said, almost passionately;
"don't imagine things about me, Porter. I have my work--and my
freedom--I won't give them up for anybody."

If she said the words with something less than her former confidence he
was not aware of it. How could he know that she was making a last
desperate stand?

When at last she sent him away, he went with an air of depression which
touched her.

"I've risked being thought a cad," he said, "but I had to do it."

"I know. I don't blame you, dear boy."

She gave him her hand upon it, and he went away, and she was left alone
in the moonlight.

And when the last echo of his purring car had died away into silence
she went down and sat in the garden on the bench beside the
hundred-leaved bush. Aunt Isabelle's light was still burning, and
presently she would go up and say "Good-night," but for the moment she
must be alone. Alone to face the doubts which were facing her.
Suppose, oh, suppose, that the things which Roger had told her about
his marriage had been distorted to make his story sound plausible?
Suppose the little wife