s and rest and
wash. I'll fetch you some nice hot tea. It's terrible--his mother
dying--and you having to break it to him." Polly led Kathryn away and
Peter sat wretchedly alone.

When Polly returned he was properly contrite and set to work assisting
with the evening meal. Polly was silent for the most part, but she was
deeply concerned.

"She says she's going to marry Brace," she confided.

"Well, I reckon if she says she is, she is!" Peter grunted. "She looks
capable of doing it."

"Peter, you mustn't be hard."

"I hope to the Lord I can be hard." Peter looked grim. "It's being
soft and easy as has laid us open to--what?"

"Peter, you give me the creeps."

Peter and Polly were in the kitchen when Kathryn came downstairs. She
had had a bath and a nap. She had resorted to her toilet aids and she
looked pathetically lovely as she crouched by the hearth in the empty
room and waited for Northrup's return. Every gesture she made bespoke
the sweet clinging woman bent on mercy's task.

She again saw herself in a dramatic scene. Northrup would open the
door--that one! Kathryn fixed her eyes on the middle door--he would
look at her--reel back; call her name, and she would rush to him, fall
in his arms; then control herself, lead him to the fire and break the
sad news to him gently, sweetly. He would kneel at her feet, bury his
face in her lap----

But while Kathryn was mentally rehearsing this and thrilling at the
success of her wonderful intuitions, Northrup was striding along the
road toward the inn, his head bent forward, his hands in his pockets.
He was feeling rather the worse for wear; the consequences of his
deeds and promises were hurtling about him like tangible, bruising
things.

He was never to see Mary-Clare again! That had sounded fine and noble
when it meant her freedom from Larry Rivers, but what a beastly thing
it seemed, viewed from Mary-Clare's side. What would she think of
him? After those hours of understanding--those hours weighted with
happiness and delight that neither of them dared to call by their true
names, so beautiful and fragile were they! Those hours had been like
bubbles in which all that was _real_ was reflected. They had breathed
upon them, watched them, but had not touched them frankly. And
now----

How ugly and ordinary it would all seem if he left without one last
word!

The past few weeks might become a memory that would enrich and ennoble
all the years on ahead or they mi