not allow him to
relinquish his passages except at his own risk. They would try to sell
his ticket for him, but they could not take it back, and they could not
promise to sell it. There was reason in what they said, but if there had
been none, they had the four hundred dollars which Kenton had paid
for his five berths and they had at least the advantage of him in
the argument by that means. He put the ticket back in his pocket-book
without attempting to answer them, and deferred his decision till he
could advise with his wife, who, after he left the breakfast-table upon
his errand to the steamship office, had abandoned her children to their
own devices, and gone to scold Ellen for not eating.

She had not the heart to scold her when she found the girl lying face
downward in the pillow, with her thin arms thrown up through the coils
and heaps of her loose-flung hair. She was so alight that her figure
scarcely defined itself under the bedclothes; the dark hair, and the
white, outstretched arms seemed all there was of her. She did not stir,
but her mother knew she was not sleeping. "Ellen," she said, gently,
"you needn't be troubled about our going to Europe. Your father has gone
down to the steamship office to give back his ticket."

The girl flashed her face round with nervous quickness. "Gone to give
back his ticket!"

"Yes, we decided it last night. He's never really wanted to go, and--"

"But I don't wish poppa to give up his ticket!" said Ellen. "He must get
it again. I shall die if I stay here, momma. We have got to go. Can't
you understand that?"

Mrs. Kenton did not know what to answer. She had a strong superficial
desire to shake her daughter as a naughty child which has vexed its
mother, but under this was a stir stronger pity for her as a woman,
which easily, prevailed. "Why, but, Ellen dear! We thought from what you
said last night--"

"But couldn't you SEE," the girl reproached her, and she began to cry,
and turned her face into the pillow again and lay sobbing.

"Well," said her mother, after she had given her a little time, "you
needn't be troubled. Your father can easily get the ticket again; he can
telephone down for it. Nothing has been done yet. But didn't you really
want to stay, then?"

"It isn't whether I want to stay or not," Ellen spoke into her pillow.
"You know that. You know that I have got to go. You know that if I saw
him--Oh, why do you make me talk?"

"Yes, I understand, child." T