by the lagoon at Ravenswood and bathe when the tide was in. He told
her that he too had a project: to persuade the men of Menlo to build a
Club House, and thus have some sort of informal social centre. She told
him that she thought that would be nice, and added that she wished she
had a project too, but she was hopelessly unoriginal. Trennahan assured
her that she did herself injustice; and in these admirable platitudes
they pushed along a half-hour like a wheel-barrow, while both thought of
the great oak staring at them from the foot of the garden.

It will come easier with time, she thought that night, as she pulled her
clothes off with heavy fingers. I can almost look him in the eyes
without wanting to fling myself at him. His voice does not matter so
much, for I always hear it anyway. They say that when you no longer hear
a person's voice in your memory the love has gone too. They will be away
for a year after they marry. Perhaps I shall forget then. My memory is
not very good.

She opened the upper drawer of her bureau and lifted out her large
handkerchief box. In its lower part, carefully hidden away, were
Trennahan's letters, several of his faded boutonnieres, and one of his
gloves. She had made up her mind the day she heard of his engagement to
Helena that these things must be burnt, but had dreaded their sight and
touch. Now, however, they must go. She was always conscious of their
presence; something of her weakness might pass with their destruction.
As she lifted out the handkerchiefs she came upon the dagger. It was a
beautiful toy, but she pushed it aside resentfully. Its magic was not
for her. She gathered up her tokens with trembling fingers, resisted the
impulse to sit down and weep over them, laid them in the grate, and
flung a bunch of lighted matches into the pyre.

* * * * *

Helena immediately gave a party. The Belmont house, like most of the
others of Menlo, had been designed for comfort rather than for
entertaining; but the dining-room was large, and when stripped of the
many massive pieces of furniture which Colonel Belmont had brought from
his Southern home, would have accommodated more dancing folk than the
neighbours and their guests. The famous Four were not present; nor were
they seen in Menlo that summer. Immediately after the announcement of
Helena's engagement some cruel wag had sent each a miniature tub with
"For Tears" inscribed with black paint upon t