hem both. Wolf had his claim,
true; but what was truly the generous thing for a woman to do toward a
man she did not love? Wasn't a year or two of hurt feelings, even anger
and resentment, better than a loveless marriage that might last fifty
years?

This was a terrible problem, and Norma did not know what to think. On
the one hand was the certainty of that higher life from which she had
been exiled since her marriage: the music, the art, the letters, the
cultivated voices and fragrant rooms, the wealth and luxury, the
devotion of this remarkable and charming man, whose simple friendship
had been beyond her dreams a few years ago. On the other side was the
painful and indeed shameful desertion of Wolf, the rupture with Aunt
Kate and Rose, and the undying sense in her own soul of an unworthy
action.

But Rose was absorbed in Harry and the children, and Aunt Kate would
surely go with Wolf to California, three thousand miles away----

"I am not brave enough!" she whispered.

"You _are_ brave enough," Chris answered, quickly. "Tell him the
truth--as you did on your wedding day. Tell him you acted on a mad
impulse, and that you are sorry. A few days' discomfort, and you are
free, and one week of happiness will blot out the whole wretched memory
for ever."

"It is not wretchedness, Chris," she corrected, with a rueful smile. But
she did not contradict him, and before they parted she promised him that
she would not go to California without at least telling Wolf how she
felt about it.

Rose and Harry joined them for the Saturday night reunion. Norma thought
that Wolf seemed moody, and was unresponsive to her generous welcome,
and she was conscious of watching him somewhat apprehensively as the
evening wore on. But it was Sunday afternoon before the storm broke.

Wolf was at church when Norma wakened, and as she dressed she meditated
a trifle uneasily over this departure from their usual comfortable
Sunday morning habit. She breakfasted alone, Wolf and his mother coming
in for their belated coffee just as Norma, prettily coated and hatted
and furred, was leaving the house for the ten-o'clock Mass. They did
not meet again until luncheon, and as Wolf had explained that he must
leave at four o'clock for Philadelphia, Norma began to think that this
particular visit would end without any definite unpleasantness.

However, at about three o'clock, he invited her to walk with him to the
station, and join his mother later, at R