o wish to wrong the
husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with
the wife.

Evelyn was the first to break the silence.

"You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said.

"You should never have done it!" he replied quickly.

"What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I
hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What
was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving
Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence.
"Why?" she asked at length.

"It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly.

He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might
have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a
thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it.

"Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a
small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make
you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?"

"I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me."

"But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that
she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her
side.

"I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of
my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn."

Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had
been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the
smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the
genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence.

"What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I
thought--" her full lips quivered.

She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already
invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she
believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was
certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had
undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless,
dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow.

"I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination.

She gave a half smothered cry.

"To-night! To-night!" she repeated.

He changed his position uncomfortably.

"I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly.

"I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You k