ly--"weren't you having a good time?"

His answer as he lay back with eyes closed again was another of his
smiles, only dimmer now with a faint bitter-sweetness. She knew it was
like asking a man if his pain is better when it is killing him.
Nevertheless, the ground of common, practical things was the only one to
keep to, so she went on: "But you won't like sleeping at the house every
night--with no one in it. Don't you want to come here?"

He shook his head. "No, thanks. Mrs. Maggs will make my bed and give me
breakfast. That's all I need. Get the rest of my meals in town."

"But you'll stay to dinner now, won't you?"

He lifted himself up in his chair at last, his face taking on its first
look of life. "Thor be there?"

"Why, no. Thor's away--in the West. Didn't you know?"

He started nervously. "Away in the West? Not looking for me?"

She tried to smile. "Of course not. He went to attend the medical
congress in Minneapolis. He's on his way home now."

"When do you expect him?"

"Oh, not at once. I don't know when. He's taking his time."

He studied her awhile, with eyes that seemed to read her secret. "What
for?"

"To see the country, I suppose. My last letter was from Colorado
Springs."

He dropped back into the chair with a tired sigh of relief. "All right.
I'll stay to dinner. Thanks."

She allowed him to rest, asking no more questions than she could help
till dinner was over and they had come out again on the portico, so that
he might have his cigar in the cool, scented evening air. She was more
at ease with him, too, now that she could no longer see the suffering in
his pinched, emaciated face.

"Claude, why did you come home?"

He withdrew the cigar from his lips just long enough to say, "Because I
couldn't stay away."

"Why couldn't you?"

"Because I couldn't."

"Don't you think it would have been well to make the effort?"

"What was the good of making the effort when I couldn't keep it up?"

"But you kept it up for a while."

"Not after--after I heard."

"Heard about Rosie?"

He made an inarticulate sound of assent.

"What did you hear?"

"I heard--what she did."

"How? Who told you?"

"That chump Billy Cheever. Wrote me."

"How did he know it had anything to do with you?"

"Oh, I was fool enough to tell him about her once--and so he caught on
to it. Put two and two together, I suppose, when he heard that--that--"

She seized the opportunity to make the first incision t