ant me."

"But why don't you make your--husband--I mean, why doesn't he write to
Mr. Deacon here, and tell him the truth--" Cornish burst out.

Under this implied belief, she relaxed and into her face came its rare
sweetness.

"He has written," she said. "The letter's there."

He followed her look, scowled at the two letters.

"What'd he say?"

"Dwight don't like me to touch his mail. I'll have to wait till he
comes back."

"Lord sakes!" said Cornish.

This time he did rise and walk about. He wanted to say something, wanted
it with passion. He paused beside Lulu and stammered: "You--you--you're
too nice a girl to get a deal like this. Darned if you aren't."

To her own complete surprise Lulu's eyes filled with tears, and she
could not speak. She was by no means above self-sympathy.

"And there ain't," said Cornish sorrowfully, "there ain't a thing I can
do."

And yet he was doing much. He was gentle, he was listening, and on his
face a frown of concern. His face continually surprised her, it was so
fine and alive and near, by comparison with Ninian's loose-lipped,
ruddy, impersonal look and Dwight's thin, high-boned hardness. All the
time Cornish gave her something, instead of drawing upon her. Above all,
he was there, and she could talk to him.

"It's--it's funny," Lulu said. "I'd be awful glad if I just _could_
know for sure that the other woman was alive--if I couldn't know she's
dead."

This surprising admission Cornish seemed to understand.

"Sure you would," he said briefly.

"Cora Waters," Lulu said. "Cora Waters, of San Diego, California. And
she never heard of me."

"No," Cornish admitted. They stared at each other as across some abyss.

In the doorway Mrs. Bett appeared.

"I scraped up everything," she remarked, "and left the dishes set."

"That's right, mamma," Lulu said. "Come and sit down."

Mrs. Bett entered with a leisurely air of doing the thing next expected
of her.

"I don't hear any more playin' and singin'," she remarked. "It sounded
real nice."

"We--we sung all I knew how to play, I guess, mamma."

"I use' to play on the melodeon," Mrs. Bett volunteered, and spread and
examined her right hand.

"Well!" said Cornish.

She now told them about her log-house in a New England clearing, when
she was a bride. All her store of drama and life came from her. She
rehearsed it with far eyes. She laughed at old delights, drooped at old
fears. She told about her little daughter