would see it; Ellen." Her mother looked
wistfully at her, but the girl left her without letting her satisfy the
longing in the mother's heart to put her arms round her child, and pull
her head down upon her breast for a cry.

Kenton slept better that night than his wife, who was kept awake by a
formless foreboding. For the week that followed she had the sense of
literally pushing the hours away, so that at times she found herself
breathless, as if from some heavy physical exertion. At such times she
was frantic with the wish to have the days gone, and the day of their
sailing come, but she kept her impatience from her husband and children,
and especially from Ellen. The girl was passive enough; she was almost
willing, and in the preparation for their voyage she did her share of
the shopping, and discussed the difficult points of this business with
her mother and sister as if she had really been thinking about it all.
But her mother doubted if she had, and made more of Ellen's sunken eyes
and thin face than of her intelligent and attentive words. It was these
that she reported to her husband, whom she kept from talking with Ellen,
and otherwise quelled.

"Let her alone," she insisted, one morning of the last week. "What can
you do by speaking to her about it? Don't you see that she is making the
best fight she can? You will weaken her if you interfere. It's less than
a week now, and if you can only hold out, I know she can."

Kenton groaned. "Well, I suppose you're right, Sarah. But I don't like
the idea of forcing her to go, unless--"

"Then you had better write to that fellow, and ask him to come and get
her."

This shut Kenton's mouth, and he kept on with his shaving. When he
had finished he felt fresher, if not stronger, and he went down to
breakfast, which he had alone, not only with reference to his own
family, but all the other guests of the hotel. He was always so early
that sometimes the dining-room was not open; when this happened, he used
to go and buy a newspaper at the clerk's desk, for it was too early then
for the news-stand to be open. It happened so that morning, and he got
his paper without noticing the young man who was writing his name in
the hotel register, but who looked briskly up when the clerk bade Kenton
good-morning by name.

"Why, judge!" he said, and he put out a hand which Kenton took with
trembling reluctance and a dazed stare. "I thought you sailed last
Saturday!"

"We sail next