nto the pictures of her new life.

And if they did not fit, what of Franklin? Even in old unsophisticated
pictures of a _salon_ he had been a figure adjusted with some
difficulty. It had, in days that seemed immeasurably remote--days when
she had wondered whether she could marry Franklin--it had been difficult
to see herself introducing him with any sense of achievement to Lady
Blair or to the Collings, and she knew now, clearly, why: in Lady
Blair's drawing-room, as in Devonshire and at Grimshaw Rectory, Franklin
would have looked a funny little man. How much more funny in the new
setting. What would he do in it? What was it to mean to him? What would
any setting mean to Franklin in which he was to see her as no longer
needing him? For, and this was the worst of it, and in spite of
happiness Althea felt it as a pang indeed, she no longer needed
Franklin; and knowing this she longed at once to avoid and to atone to
him.

She found him after her walk with Aunt Julia sitting behind a newspaper
in the library. Franklin always read the newspapers every morning, and
it struck Althea as particularly touching that this good habit should be
persevered in under his present circumstances. She was so much touched
by Franklin, the habit of old intimacy was so strong, that her own
essential change of heart seemed effaced by the uprising of feeling for
him. 'O Franklin!' she said. He had risen as she entered, and he stood
looking at her with a smile. It seemed to receive her, to forgive, to
understand. Almost weeping, she went to him with outstretched hands,
faltering, 'I am so happy, and I am so sorry, dear Franklin. Oh, forgive
me if I have hurt your life.'

He looked at her, no longer smiling, very gravely, holding her hands,
and she knew that he was not thinking of his life, but of hers. And,
with a further pang, she remembered that the last time they had stood
so--she and Franklin--she had given him more hope for his life than ever
before in all their histories. He must remember, too, and he must feel
her unworthy in remembering, and even though she did not need Franklin,
she could not bear him to think her unworthy. 'Forgive me,' she
repeated. And the tears rose to her eyes. 'I've been so tossed, so
unstable. I haven't known. I only know now, you see, dear Franklin. I've
really fallen in love at last. Can you ever forgive me?'

'For not having fallen in love with me?' he asked gently.

'No, dear,' she answered, forced into