cerned that she should shed these relics of an ancestral code
than acquire the doctrines of Sorel and Pouget. And yet association with
him presented the allurement of a dangerous adventure. Intellectually he
fascinated her; and still another motive--which she partially disguised
from herself--prevented her from repelling him. That motive had to
do with Ditmar. She tried to put Ditmar from her mind; she sought in
desperation, not only to keep busy, but to steep and lose herself in
this fierce creed as an antidote to the insistent, throbbing pain that
lay ambushed against her moments of idleness. The second evening of
her installation at Headquarters she had worked beyond the supper hour,
helping Sanders with his accounts. She was loath to go home. And when
at last she put on her hat and coat and entered the hall Rolfe, who
had been talking to Jastro, immediately approached her. His liquid eyes
regarded her solicitously.

"You must be hungry," he said. "Come out with me and have some supper."

But she was not hungry; what she needed was air. Then he would walk a
little way with her--he wanted to talk to her. She hesitated, and then
consented. A fierce hope had again taken possession of her, and when
they came to Warren Street she turned into it.

"Where are you going?" Rolfe demanded.

"For a walk," she said. "Aren't you coming?"

"Will you have supper afterwards?"

"Perhaps."

He followed her, puzzled, yet piqued and excited by her manner, as with
rapid steps she hurried along the pavement. He tried to tell her
what her friendship meant to him; they were, he declared, kindred
spirits--from the first time he had seen her, on the Common, he had
known this. She scarcely heard him, she was thinking of Ditmar; and this
was why she had led Rolfe into Warren Street they might meet Ditmar! It
was possible that he would be going to the mill at this time, after his
dinner! She scrutinized every distant figure, and when they reached the
block in which he lived she walked more slowly. From within the house
came to her, faintly, the notes of a piano--his daughter Amy was
practising. It was the music, a hackneyed theme of Schubert's played
heavily, that seemed to arouse the composite emotion of anger and
hatred, yet of sustained attraction and wild regret she had felt before,
but never so poignantly as now. And she lingered, perversely resolved to
steep herself in the agony.

"Who lives here" Rolfe asked.

"Mr. Ditmar," she