d and threw it back, looking up at the dull stars, while
his outstretched hands lay clasped before him; he began to breathe
more deeply. Not many minutes later he rose and walked homeward across
the dim, wide waste.

It was afternoon of the next day when he stood at Mrs. Stutt's door
again. Mrs. Stutt looked at him with the embarrassment of conscious
pity as she admitted him. People had been looking at him all day, on
the street and in the office, with the same embarrassment and pity.
Miss Northrop was packing, the good woman said; and, in an answer to
her call, Winifred came out from her room into the little
sitting-room. She, too, was evidently under agitation and
embarrassment. Will had no doubt, from his first sight of her face,
that she had seen and understood his haggard flight the evening
before. He was himself entirely calm, as he held out his hand with a
grave smile in silence.

Winifred tried to speak naturally.

"I had just sent a note to you, Will," she said, as they sat down.

"About the school, I suppose," he answered, quietly. "You are going
away at once?"

"Yes." There she stopped, with her eyes downcast. She looked up to his
face and caught her breath to speak, stopped, and began again.

"You have been very good to me all this year--" there she hesitated.
Her difficulty was to choose her words so as to ignore his secret, and
yet not part from him in a cold or inadequate way.

He rose, and crossed over to her.

"Winifred," he said gently, "you are distressed on my account; and so
it is better that I should speak of what otherwise it would be better
to ignore. I want you to know that you have not harmed me."

She rose quickly at that, and they stood near together, with their
eyes fixed on each other's; the fulness of expression in her face
seemed to take the place of answer. He went on steadily, speaking low:

"I have thought it all over, and I find these two things stronger than
any pain that may have come to me. Winifred, I cannot do you this
wrong, to make you the instrument of evil to me. That is one of the
two things. And the other is that there is nothing to reproach any one
with; no one has done wrong; there is no cause for shame, or
resentment, or bitterness--only for clean pain. Pain is no great evil,
Winifred, when it is clean, no matter how sharp."

He smiled at her tranquilly enough as he spoke. In truth, he was not
unhappy at the moment. It is not during but after the parting
in