nd was happy in the knowledge that he would return.

How long ago it appeared to her already, since this pretty card had
come; she looked at it strangely, with eyes in which there was longing,
renunciation, and a wild hopelessness of love. She must not keep it;
it was not hers; it belonged of right to that other--the woman who was
his wife. No, she must not keep it--the beautiful, tender thing. With
steady hand, but blanched, quivering lips, she reached over and made a
little grave among the dying embers, in which a sullen spark glowed
like baleful eye. Quietly, with the feeling that she was burying all
of youth and hope and joy her life would ever know, she kissed the card
with dumb, clinging, passionate kisses, and then with a low, dry sob,
covered it from sight.

As she raised herself up, her eyes fell on the little box lying on her
desk in which she had placed the fragments of the cup they had broken
between them--the cup that her old play-fellow had used on that last
evening. With the impulse of habit and association, her mind turned
wearily to Jim. He was so true; he had never failed her. Had _he_
suffered as she was suffering? Poor Jim! Was this ceaseless, gnawing
agony that had usurped _her_ life no stranger to _his_? If so--God
pity him!--and her!

CHAPTER XIV.

On the way up from Virginia, Nesbit Thorne ran over in his mind the
possibilities opened by this new move of his wife's, and, on the whole,
he was satisfied. The divorce had become as much an object with him as
with her, and if she had remained quiescent in the matter, he must have
moved. He was glad to have been spared this--very glad that the
initial steps had been of her taking. It put him in a good position
with himself. The _manes_ of his mother's scruples would be satisfied,
and would never cause him discomfort since the fault did not rest with
him. And then the boy--never could his son cast word or thought of
blame to the father who had behaved so well; who had given every
chance, foregone every advantage; acted not only the part of a
gentleman, but of a generous, long-suffering man. Thorne felt a glow
of satisfaction in the knowledge that in years to come his son would
think well of him.

But this supposition of Norma's in regard to a second marriage put the
whole matter in a new light in regard to the child. If such a change
should be in contemplation, other arrangements must be made about the
boy; he could no longe