ed them. "I don't understand it at all. It
upsets all of my plans for you, Anne."

That night when he brought Anne's candle she was not on the stairs.
Winifred and Amy had gone up.

"Anne! Anne!" he called softly.

She came to the top rail and leaned over. "I'm going to bed in the dark.
There's a wonderful moon."

"Come down--for a minute."

"No."

"Then I'll come up," masterfully.

He mounted the stairs two at a time; but when he reached the landing the
door was shut!

In the morning he asked her about it. "Why, dearest?"

"Max dear, I can't marry you."

"Nonsense!" His voice was sharp. He laid his hands heavily on her
shoulders. "Why not? Look at me, Anne. Why not?"

"I'm not going to marry--anybody."

That was all he could get out of her. He pleaded, raged, and grew at
last white and still with anger. "You might at least tell me your
reasons."

She said that she would write. Perhaps she could say it better on paper.
And she was very, very sorry, but she couldn't.

Winifred knew that something was up, but made no comment. Amy, carrying
out their program of departure, had a sense of regret.

After all, it had been a lovely life, and there were worse things than
being a sister to Maxwell Sears. Her voice broke a little as she tried
to thank him on their last morning.

He wrung her hand. "Say a good word for me with Anne. I don't know
what's the matter with her."

Neither did Amy. And if she was Maxwell's advocate how could she be
Murray's? She flushed a little.

"Anne's such a child."

He remembered how he had called her a corking kid. She was more than
that to him now. She stood in the doorway in her gray sailor hat and
gray cape.

"Anne," he said, "you must have a last bunch of pansies from the
garden. Come out and help me pick them."

In the garden he asked, "Are you going to kiss me good-bye?"

"No, Max. Please--"

"Then it's 'God bless you, dearest.'"

He forgot the pansies and they went back to where the car waited.

VII

Anne's letter, written from the Eastern Shore, was a long and childish
screed. "We have always been beggars on horseback," she said. "Of course
you couldn't know that, Max. We have gone without bread so that we could
be grand and elegant. We have gone without fire so that we could buy our
satin gowns for fashionable functions. We went without butter for a year
so that Amy could entertain the Strangeways, whom she had met years ago
in Europe. I wouldn't d