abroad this last time I divorced him, and
gave him enough to keep him running for a while. My story in a nutshell
is this," and she touched her fingers lightly as she epitomized her
personal history: "married at eighteen, to a gentleman; a mother at
twenty; at twenty-three, ran off with a blackguard; married him in due
course to satisfy the _convenances_. Not forty yet and divorced twice!
And here I am, tolerably cheerful and not so much the worse for wear."

She waited for him to say something; but there appeared to be little for
Amzi to say.

"I guess we all do the best we can, Lois. You don't have to talk to me
about those things. I'm glad you're back; that's all."

He showed his embarrassment, shifting from one foot to the other, and
rubbing his hand nervously across his head.

"Amzi, you're the best man in the world, and I didn't come back here to
be a nuisance to you. I can sleep here and run off on the early train--I
looked it up before I came. But I thought I'd like to see the house--and
you in it--once more. It's a big world, and there are plenty of places
to go. There's a lot of Europe I haven't seen yet, and I like it over
there. I have some good friends in Dresden, and I promised them to come
back. So don't feel that I'm on your hands. I'm not! I can clear out in
the morning and nobody need know that I've been here."

He walked up to her and laid his hands on her shoulders. He gasped at
her suggestion of immediate flight. He had not known how much she meant
to him; and oh, she was so like Phil! It was Phil who had danced in his
mind while she summarized her life; it was the Phil she did not
know--had never known--and for whom, astonishingly, she had not asked
beyond her casual inquiry as to the girl's whereabouts. Nothing was
clear in his mind save that Lois must see and know Phil.

"I want you to stay, Lois; you've got to stay. And everything's going to
be all right."

"Please be square with me, Amzi. This is a small town and a woman can't
coolly break all the commandments and then come back and expect to be
met with a brass band. You and I understand each other; but you've got
to think of the rest of the family; my coming will doubtless outrage our
sisters' delicate moral natures--I know that--and there's Tom--it's
hardly fair to him to come trailing back. And the town's too small for
me to hide in--it was always a gossipy hole."

He clasped her wrists tightly. The working of his face showed his de