ng of mounting energy would have driven her out in
search of something that would test it.

But, when Galbraith's letter came, it took her a little aback. Miss
Gibbons had brought it in; because Rose, even then, didn't go to the
post-office. Miss Gibbons watched her tear open the big envelope
addressed to Rose in the handwriting that always went with the
California post-mark, and saw her take another unopened letter out of
it. She saw the girl's face set itself in a sudden gravity; watched her
with a hungry misgiving, while she read the enclosure, and felt the
misgiving mount to an unhappy certainty, when Rose put it away without
comment.

But Rose wasn't certain, or she felt that night when she went to bed
that she was not. Galbraith's letter frightened her a little. It was a
dictated letter, very stiff, wholly businesslike. It offered to make her
his personal assistant at a salary of fifty dollars a week. He
summarized in rather formidable terms, what her duties would be. He
wished her to report to him promptly, July first, and to telegraph him
at her earliest convenience, whether she accepted his offer. There was
no explanation of his long delay in sending for her.

Rose had no illusions as to what its acceptance would mean. It would
mean gripping life again with the full strength of both hands. It would
mean many anxious days and sleepless nights. It would mean spurring
herself to a high degree of competency. You didn't get fifty dollars a
week for anything that was easy to do. She knew that now, by hard
experience. And then the transplantation to New York would mean an end
of the cool healing peace of her present life. Things would begin
happening to her that she couldn't foresee nor control. Feelings would
begin happening to her; the kind of feelings that scorched and terrified
you. They wouldn't happen to her here in Centropolis.

She fell asleep that night under the persuasion that the thing wasn't
decided; that the safe, quiet, peaceful way was still open to her. But
when she awakened in the morning, she knew it was not.

"I surmise," said Miss Gibbons that morning at breakfast, "that you're
figuring to go away."

Rose smiled and sighed. "I don't know how you guess things like that,"
she said, "but it's true. I must be in New York on the first of July."

"Well, the sooner the quicker," said Miss Gibbons dryly. "You came all
at once and I guess it's just as well you should go the same way. I
guess neithe