enough," he said to himself, "parted from Lucy and with her
unsettled money affairs, without having to face these gnats whose sting
she cannot ward off?" With this came the thought of his own
helplessness to comfort her. He had taken her at her word that night
before she left for Paris, when she had refused to give him her promise
and had told him to wait, and he was still ready to come at her call;
loving her, watching ever her, absorbed in every detail of her daily
life, and eager to grant her slightest wish, and yet he could not but
see that she had, since her return, surrounded herself with a barrier
which he could neither understand nor break down whenever he touched on
their personal relations.

Had he loved her less he would, in justice to himself, have faced all
her opposition and demanded an answer--Yes or No--as to whether she
would yield to his wishes. But his generous nature forbade any such
stand and his reverence for her precluded any such mental attitude.

Lifting his eyes from his books and gazing dreamily into the space
before him, he recalled, with a certain sinking of the heart, a
conversation which had taken place between Jane and himself a few days
after her arrival--an interview which had made a deep impression upon
him. The two, in the absence of Martha--she had left the room for a
moment--were standing beside the crib watching the child's breathing.
Seizing the opportunity, one he had watched for, he had told her how
much he had missed her during the two years, and how much happier his
life was now that he could touch her hand and listen to her voice. She
had evaded his meaning, making answer that his pleasure, was nothing
compared to her own when she thought how safe the baby would be in his
hands; adding quickly that she could never thank him enough for
remaining in Barnegat and not leaving her helpless and without a
"physician." The tone with which she pronounced the word had hurt him.
He thought he detected a slight inflection, as if she were making a
distinction between his skill as an expert and his love as a man, but
he was not sure.

Still gazing into the shadows before him, his unread book in his hand,
he recalled a later occasion when she appeared rather to shrink from
him than to wish to be near him, speaking to him with downcast eyes and
without the frank look in her face which was always his welcome. On
this day she was more unstrung and more desolate than he had ever seen
her. At