uch that she had
planned. As a public reciter he had some little prominence; as a
schoolteacher he was just a step nearer the world of brains than were
the other possible men in town, and by that much more acceptable; and
the inevitable result of propinquity was reached. The engagement of
Belle Boyd and Jack Lowe was announced.

There was no ardent love-making on either side, and sometimes Belle,
when left alone, would wonder why she was not more elated each time she
heard him coming; rather, she seemed to feel weighted by the attachment.
She reproached herself for this and as she strove to reach a more
satisfactory state of mind she found herself thinking with a sigh of
that free career she had planned in the business world. Mrs. Boyd's
maternal hopes were too nearly realized to leave her with any
discernment and Belle's father was too much wrapped up in business and
small politics, to see even the mountains that were beyond his back
yard; but another frequent visitor at the house was gifted with better
eyes and more knowledge of the world.

Dr. Carson had never felt attracted toward Lowe. Instinctively he
disliked him. He knew at the beginning that the teacher was much older
than he admitted. The facts that the Boyds were well-to-do and that
Belle was their only child offered, in his frame of mind, a suggestive
sidelight. There were two other things that to Carson seemed important:
one, that Lowe had rather obviously avoided any reference to his
previous place of residence; the other that at one of the sociables he
had amused them all by some exceedingly clever sleight-of-hand tricks
with cards--not playing-cards, of course--they were unmentionable--but
with a few business cards marked in a special way. Carson was sure he
knew in what school such manual dexterity had been acquired.

The doubts in Belle's mind had not yet taken definite form when a new
and unpleasant circumstance obtruded. More than once lately Lowe had
come to the house carrying the unmistakable odour of drink about him. It
was smothered with cloves and peppermint, but still discoverable.
Belle's ideas were not narrow, but this thing shocked and disgusted her,
chiefly because Lowe had repeatedly and voluntarily avowed himself as
flatly opposed to it. She was thus drifting along in perplexity, taking
the trail that her instincts said was not her trail, ever prompted to
cut across to the other fork which meant developing herself, and always
restraine