unexpectedly to cover the world with snow, to eclipse the thin spring
sunshine with cheerless clouds. Helen took herself seriously to task.
She assured herself it was weak-minded to rebel. The summer was coming
and Fair Harbor with all its old delights was before her. She compelled
herself to take heart, to accept the fact that, after all, the world is
a pretty good place, and that to think only of the past, to live only on
memories and regrets, was not only cowardly and selfish, but, as Latimer
had already decided, did not tend toward efficiency.

Among the other rules of conduct that she imposed upon herself was not
to think of Latimer. At least, not during the waking hours. Should she,
as it sometimes happened, dream of him--should she imagine they were
again seated among the pines, riding across the downs, or racing at
fifty miles an hour through country roads, with the stone fences flying
past, with the wind and the sun in their eyes, and in their hearts
happiness and content--that would not be breaking her rule. If she
dreamed of him, she could not be held responsible. She could only be
grateful.

And then, just as she had banished him entirely from her mind, he came
East. Not as once he had planned to come, only to see her, but with
a blare of trumpets, at the command of many citizens, as the guest of
three cities. He was to speak at public meetings, to confer with party
leaders, to carry the war into the enemy's country. He was due to speak
in Boston at Faneuil Hall on the first of May, and that same night to
leave for the West, and three days before his coming Helen fled from the
city. He had spoken his message to Philadelphia, he had spoken to New
York, and for a week the papers had spoken only of him. And for that
week, from the sight of his printed name, from sketches of him exhorting
cheering mobs, from snap-shots of him on rear platforms leaning forward
to grasp eager hands, Helen had shut her eyes. And that during the
time he was actually in Boston she might spare herself further and more
direct attacks upon her feelings she escaped to Fair Harbor, there to
remain until, on the first of May at midnight, he again would pass out
of her life, maybe forever. No one saw in her going any significance.
Spring had come, and in preparation for the summer season the house at
Fair Harbor must be opened and set in order, and the presence there of
some one of the Page family was easily explained.

She made the thre