hat perhaps it
had not been there, that her own joy in seeing him had made her imagine
a like joy in his attitude toward her.

Cousin Patty had cried over her, kissed her, and protested that she
could not bear to go.

"But Roger thinks it is best, my dear. He is needed at home."

It seemed plausible that he might be needed, yet in the back of Mary's
mind was a doubt. What had sent him away? She was haunted by the
feeling that some sinister influence had separated them.

A pitiful little figure in black, she made the tour of the empty rooms
with Pittiwitz mewing plaintively at her heels. The little cat, with
the instinct of her kind, felt the atmosphere of change. Old rugs on
which she had sprawled were rolled up and reeking with moth balls. The
little white bed, on which she had napped unlawfully, was stripped to
the mattress. The cushions on which she had curled were packed
away--the fire was out--the hearth desolate.

Susan Jenks, coming up, found Mary with the little cat in her lap.

"Oh, honey child, don't cry like that."

"Oh, Susan, Susan, it will never be the same again, never the same."

And now once more in the garden, the roses bloomed on the
hundred-leaved bush, once more the fountain sang, and the little bronze
boy laughed through a veil of mist--but there were no gay voices in the
garden, no lovers on the stone seat. Susan Jenks kept the paths trim
and watered the flowers, and Pittiwitz chased butterflies or stretched
herself in the sun, lazily content, forgetting, gradually, those who
had for a time made up her world.

But Mary, on the high seas, could not forget what she had left behind.
It was not Susan Jenks, it was not Pittiwitz, it was not the garden
which called her back, although these had their part in her regrets--it
was the old life, the life which had belonged to her childhood and her
girlhood the life which had been lived with her mother and father and
Constance--and Barry.

As she lay listless in her deck chair, she could see nothing in her
future which would match the happiness of the past. The days lived in
the old house had never been days of great prosperity; her father had,
indeed, often been weighed down with care--there had been times of
heavy anxieties--but, there had been between them all the bond of deep
affection, of mutual dependence.

In Gordon's home there would be splendors far beyond any she had known,
there would be ease and luxury, and these would be sha