n between two hearts. He dragged heavily through his solitary
evening, and awaited with dread and yet impatience a message announcing
his wife's return.

* * * * *

It would have been easier--far easier--when she left Mr. Langhope's
door, to go straight out into the darkness and let it close in on her
for good.

Justine felt herself yielding to the spell of that suggestion as she
walked along the lamplit pavement, hardly conscious of the turn her
steps were taking. The door of the house which a few weeks before had
been virtually hers had closed on her without a question. She had been
suffered to go out into the darkness without being asked whither she was
going, or under what roof her night would be spent. The contrast between
her past and present sounded through the tumult of her thoughts like the
evil laughter of temptation. The house at Hanaford, to which she was
returning, would look at her with the same alien face--nowhere on earth,
at that moment, was a door which would open to her like the door of
home.

In her painful self-absorption she followed the side street toward
Madison Avenue, and struck southward down that tranquil thoroughfare.
There was a physical relief in rapid motion, and she walked on, still
hardly aware of her direction, toward the clustered lights of Madison
Square. Should she return to Hanaford, she had still several hours to
dispose of before the departure of the midnight train; and if she did
not return, hours and dates no longer existed for her.

It would be easier--infinitely easier--not to go back. To take up her
life with Amherst would, under any circumstances, be painful enough; to
take it up under the tacit restriction of her pledge to Mr. Langhope
seemed more than human courage could face. As she approached the square
she had almost reached the conclusion that such a temporary renewal was
beyond her strength--beyond what any standard of duty exacted. The
question of an alternative hardly troubled her. She would simply go on
living, and find an escape in work and material hardship. It would not
be hard for so inconspicuous a person to slip back into the obscure mass
of humanity.

She paused a moment on the edge of the square, vaguely seeking a
direction for her feet that might permit the working of her thoughts to
go on uninterrupted; and as she stood there, her eyes fell on the bench
near the corner of Twenty-sixth Street, where she had sat with A