you left
us?... You could have come back to me if you didn't like it.... Oh,
Ellen, where are you?... Come back ..."

Arthur stood motionless beside her, his frame rigid, his protuberant
blue eyes staring through the window at the horizon. He longed to take
Joanna in his arms, caress and comfort her, but he knew that he must
not.

"Cheer up," he said at last in a husky voice, "maybe it ain't so bad as
you think. Maybe I'll find her at home when I get back to Donkey
Street."

"Not if she took her bag. Oh, whatsumever shall we do?--whatsumever
shall we do?"

"We can but wait. If she don't come back, maybe she'll send me a
letter."

"It queers me how you can speak so light of it."

"I speak light?"

"Yes, you don't seem to tumble to it."

"Reckon I do tumble to it, but what can we do?"

"You shouldn't have left her alone all that time from breakfast till
dinner--if you'd gone after her at the start you could have brought her
back. You should ought to have kicked Sir Harry out of Donkey Street
before the start. I'd have done it surely. Reckon I love Ellen more'n
you."

"Reckon you do, Jo. I tell you, I ought never to have married her--since
it was you I cared for all along."

"Hold your tongue, Arthur. I'm ashamed of you to choose this time to
say such an immoral thing."

"It ain't immoral--it's the truth."

"Well, it shouldn't ought to be the truth. When you married Ellen you'd
no business to go on caring for me. I guess all this is a judgment on
you, caring for a woman when you'd married her sister."

"You ain't yourself, Jo," said Arthur sadly, "and there's no sense
arguing with you. I'll go away till you've got over it. Maybe I'll have
some news for you to-morrow morning."

Sec.27

To-morrow morning he had a letter from Ellen herself. He brought it at
once to a strangely drooping and weary-eyed Joanna, and read it again
over her shoulder.

"DEAR ARTHUR," it ran--

"I'm afraid this will hurt you and Joanna terribly, but I expect
you have already guessed what has happened. I am on my way to San
Remo, to join Sir Harry Trevor, and I am never coming back, because
I know now that I ought not to have married you. I do not ask you
to forgive me, and I'm sure Joanna won't, but I had to think of my
own happiness, and I never was a good wife to you. Believe me, I
have done my best--I said 'Good-bye for ever' to Harry a month ago,
but ever since then my