ng. But Marie's tears were not entirely bitter. Back of them her
busy young mind was weaving a new warp of life, with all of America for
its loom. Hope that had died lived again. Before her already lay that
great country where women might labor and live by the fruit of their
labor, where her tawdry past would be buried in the center of distant
Europe. New life beckoned to the little Marie that night in the old
salon of Maria Theresa, beckoned to her as it called to Stewart,
opportunity to one, love and work to the other. To America!

"I will go," she said at last simply. "And I will not trouble you
there."

"Good!" Stewart held out his hand and Marie took it. With a quick
gesture she held it to her cheek, dropped it.

Peter came back half an hour later, downcast but not hopeless. He had
not found Harmony, but life was not all gray. She was well, still in
Vienna, and--she had come back! She had cared then enough to come back.
To-morrow he would commence again, would comb the city fine, and when
he had found her he would bring her back, the wanderer, to a marvelous
welcome.

He found Stewart gone, and Marie feverishly overhauling her few
belongings by the salon lamp. She turned to him a face still stained
with tears but radiant with hope.

"Peter," she said gravely, "I must prepare my outfit. I go to America."

"With Stewart?"

"Alone, Peter, to work, to be very good, to be something. I am very
happy, although--Peter, may I kiss you?"

"Certainly," said Peter, and took her caress gravely, patting her thin
shoulder. His thoughts were in the garden with Harmony, who had cared
enough to come back.

"Life," said Peter soberly, "life is just one damned thing after
another, isn't it?"

But Marie was anxiously examining the hem of a skirt.

The letter from Anita reached Stewart the following morning. She said:--

"I have been thinking things over, Walter, and I am going to hurt you
very much--but not, believe me, without hurting myself. Perhaps my
uppermost thought just now is that I am disappointing you, that I am not
so big as you thought I would be. For now, in this final letter, I can
tell you how much I cared. Oh, my dear, I did care!

"But I will not marry you. And when this reaches you I shall have gone
very quietly out of your life. I find that such philosophy as I have
does not support me to-night, that all my little rules of life are
inadequate. Individual liberty was one--but there is no liberty of the