eep in the
grass. The place was quiet and in peace. The women received him
cordially; a bright color spread over the girl's face with a contented
smile that seemed to speak intimately to him. He plunged into his
business quickly, putting the case sympathetically before them. They
listened without a word, the girl's face trembling and twitching
slightly. Ruby had joined them, and Thornton interrupted his story,
but Mrs. Ellwell motioned him to go ahead. While he was talking he
hunted about for some bit of light to throw on the situation at the
end. "He wants to go away, and it might be best, if we can find
something for him. I have an uncle in Minnesota on a railroad. He
might find a little place to transplant him to." He stopped.

"You have an uncle in Minnesota," Mrs. Ellwell repeated, mechanically,
her dry eyes staring idealess at him. "You are very, very kind." She
rose and walked into the house.

"Fool," Ruby muttered; her dark face flamed up angrily. Thornton
noticed how much she resembled her handsome father. She had more fire
in her than Roper second. "I suppose he hadn't pluck enough to come
home with his own story. Father will be pretty mad. What did he
_marry_ that woman for!"

"Well," Thornton answered, calmly. "Perhaps we can build on that, the
fact that he _did_ marry her. That seems to me the most promising part
of it."

The young girl cast a contemptuous glance at him and rustled into the
house after her mother. Miss Ellwell had not uttered a word; her face
was bent over her work; and he noticed a few suspicious spots on the
dark linen cloth she was hemming. He turned his face away to the
sunny lawn and the dark, full-leaved trees that lay beyond the road. A
flock of sparrows were rowing in sharp tones among the leaves. The
house-dog picked himself up lazily and walked over to Thornton,
placing a wet muzzle on his trousers. The place was so peaceful, such
a nest of an old Puritan! And here were the demons that the divine had
warred against holding his home as their arsenal. When he permitted
himself to turn his face to the girl at his side, she was grave and
pale, and somehow exhausted. All the weariness of the struggle between
flesh and will seated itself in her heavy-lidded, sad eyes.

"You must be a brave woman and help him," Thornton said, feeling the
conventionality and silliness of any remark. "He mustn't be hounded
out of here like a dog, but made to feel that he can make a decent
future." S