had visited at separate times; but neither
she nor he mentioned the chief subject of their thoughts. She
refrained because of a strange yet natural shyness of a woman who has
found herself; and he, because from his angle of vision it was best
that Warrington should pass out of her life as suddenly and
mysteriously as he had entered it. Had he spoken frankly he would have
saved Elsa many a bitter heartache, many a weary day.

Warrington was absent, and so were his enemies. If there was any truth
in reincarnation, Elsa was confident that in the splendid days of Rome
she had beaten her pink palms in applause of the gladiators. Pagan;
she was all of that; for she knew that she could have looked upon
Mallow's face with more than ordinary interest. Never more would her
cheeks burn at the recollection of the man's look.

She was twenty-five; she had waited longer than most women; the mistake
of haste would never be hers. Nor did she close her eyes to the
future. She knew exactly what the world was, and how it would act.
She was not making any sacrifices. She was not one of those women,
lightly balanced, who must have excitement in order to exist; she
depended upon herself for her amusements. With the man she loved she
would have shared a hut in the wilderness and been happy. One of the
things that had drawn her to Arthur had been his quiet love of the
open, his interest in flowers and forests and streams. Society, that
division of classes, she had accepted, but to it she had never bowed
down. How very well she could do without it! She would go with him
and help him build his bridges, help him to fight torrents and
hurricanes, and to forget. That he had bidden her farewell was
nothing. She would seek him. In her pursuit of happiness she was not
going to permit false modesty to intervene. In her room, later, she
wrote two letters. The one to Arthur covered several pages; the other
consisted of a single line. She went down to the office, mailed
Arthur's letter and left the note in Warrington's key-box. It was not
an intentionally cruel letter she had written to the man in America;
but if she had striven toward that effect she could not have achieved
it more successfully. She cried out against the way he had treated his
brother, the false pride that had hidden all knowledge of him from her.
Where were the charity and mercy of which he had so often preached?
Pages of burning reproaches which seared the soul of