orse in Kate Leavenworth's career.

CHAPTER XX

David had found it necessary to take a journey which might keep him away
for several weeks.

He told Marcia in the evening when he came home from the office. He told
her as he would have told his clerk. It meant nothing to him but an
annoyance that he had to start out in the early winter, leave his business
in other's hands for an indefinite period, and go among strangers. He did
not see the whitening of Marcia's lips, nor the quick little movement of
her hand to her heart. Even Marcia herself did not realize all that it
meant to her. She felt as if a sudden shock had almost knocked her off her
feet. This quiet life in the big house, with only David at intervals to
watch and speak to occasionally, and no one to open her true heart to, had
been lonely; and many a time when she was alone at night she had wept
bitter tears upon her pillow,--why she did not quite know. But now when she
knew that it was to cease, and David was going away from her for a long
time, perhaps weeks, her heart suddenly tightened and she knew how sweet
it had been growing. Almost the tears came to her eyes, but she made a
quick errand to the hearth for the teapot, busying herself there till they
were under control again. When she returned to her place at the table she
was able to ask David some commonplace question about the journey which
kept her true feeling quite hidden from him.

He was to start the next evening if possible. It appeared that there was
something important about railroading coming up in Congress. It was
necessary that he should be present to hear the debate, and also that he
should see and interview influential men. It meant much to the success of
the great new enterprises that were just in their infancy that he should
go and find out all about them and write them up as only he whose heart
was in it could do. He was pleased to have been selected for this; he was
lifted for the time above himself and his life troubles, and given to feel
that he had a work in the world that was worth while, a high calling, a
chance to give a push to the unrolling of the secret possibilities of the
universe and help them on their way.

Marcia understood it all, and was proud and glad for him, but her own
heart which beat in such perfect sympathy with the work felt lonely and
left out. If only she could have helped too!

There was no time for David to take