rs of Dick he himself could
not, of late years, get along with. Was it youth? he wondered. Yet Nan
was young. Who so sweetly sympathetic as Nan?

"Let's not talk about him," said she. "Yes, a minute more, though. I've
sent off a letter to him. Charlotte was to give it to Jerry to mail on
the train. It told him I shouldn't tell where I was, and I certainly
shouldn't come back till he got his mother away from here. He'd simply
got to do it. I told him plainly."

"And then you're going back? You promised him?"

"I didn't promise him anything. Because, how could I? I don't know how
things are coming out. There's the woman."

"What woman?"

He asked this in a perfect good faith.

"Mrs. Tenney." She withdrew from him slightly. If Tira made his heart
race, she wouldn't hear it. He should not be spied upon. "Don't you
know," said she clearly, "I've got to see this thing through?"

"See it through?" he repeated. "You can't. She won't let you. She won't
let me."

"Of course she won't let you. If the man's mad with jealousy, he won't
stand another man's supporting his wife."

"I should very much doubt if she let you. She's got a loyalty--well,
it's the sort you read about when a brute breaks a woman and she says
she fell and hurt herself. It's been the surprise of my life that she
said a word to me."

"That's easy," said Nan. "You're so awfully sorry for everybody. They
feel it in you. She thought you were an archangel."

"An archangel!" groaned Raven. "Good Lord! Well, what do you propose
doing?"

"Go over there to-morrow. Ask her to come here and help me get the house
in order."

"Then what? Talk to her? You'll frighten her."

But he knew Nan would frighten no one, not the least of the maimed and
spent.

"No, but I thought maybe if things kept happening, I could take her back
with me to town, to work."

"There's the child," suggested Raven.

"Yes, that's a drawback," she owned seriously. "On the other hand, it's
an advantage. The child might be made the reason: to have somebody look
at him, you know. I suppose you saw he isn't quite right."

"Not right? what do you mean? Deficient?"

"I don't know," said Nan. "That or something. Deaf, maybe. But not
right. I hear something. It's Charlotte. Kiss me, Rookie. On my
forehead"--he did it--"on my forehead, on my right cheek, on my left
cheek, on my chin. No, that's all. That's good-night, Rookie--darling
Rookie! It is Charlotte. I'll let her in."

She went