life? That John had really turned a sort of moral somersault
and come up a different creature, she did not realize in the least, nor
the difficulties surmounted in such a feat; but she did give him credit
secretly for turning about face and behaving far more decently than she
could ever have believed possible. She had no conception of his mental
torture at the time, but if he kept on doing well, she privately
intended to inform Susanna and at least give her a chance of trying him
again, if absence had diminished her sense of injury. One thing that
she did not know was that John was on the eve of losing his partnership.
When Jack had said that his father was not going back to the store
the next week, she thought it meant simply a vacation. Divided hearts,
broken vows, ruined lives she could bear the sight of these with
considerable philosophy, but a lost income was a very different, a very
tangible thing. She almost lost her breath when her brother knocked the
ashes from his meerschaum and curtly told her of the proposed change in
his business relations.

"I don't know what I shall do yet," he said, "whether I shall set up for
myself in a small way or take a position in another concern,--that is,
if I can get one--my stock of popularity seems to be pretty low just now
in Farnham. I'd move away tomorrow and cut the whole gossipy, deceitful,
hypocritical lot of 'em if I was n't afraid of closing the house and so
losing Susanna, if she should ever feel like coming back to us."

These words and the thought back of them were too much for John's
self-control. The darkness helped him and his need of comfort was
abject. Suddenly he burst out, "Oh, Louisa, for heaven's sake, give me a
little crumb of comfort, if you have any! How can you stand like a stone
all these months and see a man suffering as I have suffered, without
giving him a word?"

"You brought it on yourself," said Louisa, in self-exculpation.

"Does that make it any easier to bear?" cried John. "Don't you suppose
I remember it every hour, and curse myself the more? You know perfectly
well that I'm a different man today. I don't know what made me change;
it was as if something had been injected into my blood that turned me
against everything I had liked best before. I hate the sight of the men
and the women I used to go with, not because they are any worse, but
because they remind me of what I have lost. I have reached the point now
where I have got to have news