n Holt never darkened the door; nor
did he ever willingly stop to talk to Martha when he met her on the
road. She felt the slight, and avoided him when she could. This
resulted in their seldom speaking to each other, and then only in the
most casual way. She fancied he might think she wanted news of Bart,
and so gave him no opportunity to discuss him or his whereabouts; but
she was mistaken. The captain never mentioned his name to friend or
stranger. To him the boy was dead for all time. Nor had anyone of his
companions heard from him since that stormy night on the beach.

Doctor John's struggle had lasted for months, but he had come through
it chastened and determined. For the first few days he went about his
work as one in a dream, his mind on the woman he loved, his hand
mechanically doing its duty. Jane had so woven herself into his life
that her sudden departure had been like the upwrenching of a plant,
tearing out the fibres twisted about his heart, cutting off all his
sustenance and strength. The inconsistencies of her conduct especially
troubled him. If she loved him--and she had told him that she did, and
with their cheeks touching--how could she leave him in order to indulge
a mere whim of her sister's? And if she loved him well enough to tell
him so, why had she refused to plight him her troth? Such a course was
unnatural, and out of his own and everyone else's experience. Women who
loved men with a great, strong, healthy love, the love he could give
her, and the love he knew she could give him, never permitted such
trifles to come between them and their life's happiness. What, he asked
himself a thousand times, had brought this change?

As the months went by these doubts and speculations one by one passed
out of his mind, and only the image of the woman he adored, with all
her qualities--loyalty to her trust, tenderness over Lucy and
unquestioned love for himself--rose clear. No, he would believe in her
to the end! She was still all he had in life. If she would not be his
wife she should be his friend. That happiness was worth all else to him
in the world. His was not to criticise, but to help. Help as SHE wanted
it; preserving her standard of personal honor, her devotion to her
ideals, her loyalty, her blind obedience to her trust.

Mrs. Cavendish had seen the change in her son's demeanor and had
watched him closely through his varying moods, but though she divined
their cause she had not sought to probe