reach from."

Roger pushed back his chair. "I am tempted to wish," his voice was
grim, "that we were not quite so civilized, not quite so modern.
Pistols or swords would seem an easier way than this."

"I'm fighting for Mary. You've got to let go. None of her friends
want it--Gordon would never consent."

It seemed to Roger that all the whispers which had assailed him in the
days of long ago were rushing back upon him in a roaring wave of sound.

He rose, white and shaken. "Do you call it victory when one man stabs
another through the heart? Well, if this is your victory, Bigelow--you
are welcome to it."

CHAPTER XXV

_In Which Mary Bids Farewell to the Old Life; and in Which She Finds
Happiness on the High Seas._

Contrary Mary was Contrary Mary no longer. Since Roger had gone,
taking Cousin Patty with him--gone without the word to her for which
she had waited, she had submitted to Gordon's plans for her, and to
Aunt Frances' and Porter's execution of them.

Only to Grace did she show any signs of her old rebellion.

"Did you ever think that I should be beaten, Grace?" she said,
pitifully. "Is that the way with all women? Do we reach out for so
much, and then take what we can get?"

Grace pondered. "Things tie us down, but we don't have to stay
tied--and I am beginning to see a way out for myself, Mary."

She told of her talk with Roger and of her own strenuous desire to
help; but she did not tell what she had said to him at the last. There
was something here which she could not understand. Mary persistently
refused to talk about him. Even now she shifted the topic.

"I don't want to strive," she said, "not even for the sake of others.
I want to rest for a thousand years--and sleep for the next thousand."

And this from Mary, buoyant, vivid Mary, with her almost boyish
strength and energy.

The big house was to be closed. Aunt Isabelle would go with Mary.
Susan Jenks and Pittiwitz would be domiciled in the kitchen wing, with
a friend of Susan's to keep them company.

Mary, wandering on the last day through the Tower Rooms, thought of the
night when Roger Poole had first come to them. And now he would never
come again.

She had not been able to understand his abrupt departure. Yet there
had been nothing to resent--he had been infinitely kind, sympathetic,
strong, helpful. If she missed something from his manner which had
been there on the day of his arrival, she told herself t