again. The girl was
nimble-minded. She challenged his philosophy and gave him a chance to
defend it. With the conviction, as their meal went on, that Le Moyne and
his companion must surely have gone, she gained ease.

It was only by wild driving that she got back to the hospital by ten
o'clock.

Wilson left her at the corner, well content with himself. He had had the
rest he needed in congenial company. The girl stimulated his interest.
She was mental, but not too mental. And he approved of his own attitude.
He had been discreet. Even if she talked, there was nothing to tell. But
he felt confident that she would not talk.

As he drove up the Street, he glanced across at the Page house. Sidney
was there on the doorstep, talking to a tall man who stood below and
looked up at her. Wilson settled his tie, in the darkness. Sidney was a
mighty pretty girl. The June night was in his blood. He was sorry he had
not kissed Carlotta good-night. He rather thought, now he looked back,
she had expected it.

As he got out of his car at the curb, a young man who had been standing
in the shadow of the tree-box moved quickly away.

Wilson smiled after him in the darkness.

"That you, Joe?" he called.

But the boy went on.

CHAPTER VIII

Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine
was to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K.
in the house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother.

The balcony outside the parlor was already under way. On the night
before she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her
mother until the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her
"Daily Thoughts" reading.

Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleasant
angle. She could see the garden and the whitewashed fence with its
morning-glories, and at the same time, by turning her head, view the
Wilson house across the Street. She looked mostly at the Wilson house.

K. Le Moyne was upstairs in his room. She could hear him tramping up and
down, and catch, occasionally, the bitter-sweet odor of his old brier
pipe.

All the small loose ends of her life were gathered up--except Joe. She
would have liked to get that clear, too. She wanted him to know how she
felt about it all: that she liked him as much as ever, that she did not
want to hurt him. But she wanted to make it clear, too, that she knew
now that she would never marry him. She thought sh