the world vanished from her
thoughts, or rather had never been there. She was drinking again the
forbidden waters for which she had thirsted, perhaps without quite
knowing it, so long. The strangeness, the strain, the artifice of the
last eight months fell from her like a spell; she was herself again,
comfortable again, poised again, thrilling from head to heels with
delicious and bubbling life--ready for anything!

Now that they were alone she felt no more nervousness; he would speak to
her when he was ready, he could not leave her without speaking. Norma
settled back comfortably in the deep, low seat, and glanced sidewise at
the stern profile that showed between his high fur collar and the fur
cap he had pulled well down over his ears. The world seemed changed to
her; she had wakened from a long dream.

"No--not the old house!" she presently broke the silence to tell him. "I
go to New Jersey."

He had been driving slowly out Fifth Avenue, now he obediently turned,
and threaded his way through the cross-street traffic until they were
within perhaps a hundred feet of the entrance to the New Jersey subways.
Then he ran the car close to the curb, and stopped, and for the first
time looked fully at Norma, and she saw his old, pleasant smile.

"Well, and how goes it?" he asked. "How is Wolf? Tell me where you are
living, and all about it!"

Norma in answer gave him a report upon her own affairs, and spoke of
Aunt Kate and Rose and Rose's children. She did not realize that a tone
almost pleading, almost apologetic, crept into her eager voice while she
spoke, and told its own story. Chris watched her closely, his eyes never
leaving her face. All around them moved the confusion and congestion of
Sixth Avenue; overhead the elevated road roared and crashed, but
neither man nor woman was more than vaguely conscious of surroundings.

"And are you happy, Norma?" Chris asked.

"Oh, yes!" she answered, quickly.

"You are a very game little liar," he said, dispassionately. "No--no,
I'm not blaming you!" he added, hastily, as she would have spoken. "You
took the very best way out, and I respect and honour you for it! I was
not surprised--although the possibility had never occurred to me."

Something in his cool, almost lifeless tone, chilled her, and she did
not speak.

"When I heard of it," Chris said, "I went to Canada. I don't remember
the details exactly, but I remember one day sitting up there--in the
woods somewhere,