h, well, now everything was different. She was older. She
was, perhaps, sadly wiser. She was also married, and Jim was, could
be, nothing to her. His nobleness to her was the nobleness which was
not the result of a selfish love that looks and hopes for its reward,
she told herself. It was part of the man. He would have acted that way
whatever his feelings for her. He was a great, loyal friend, she told
herself again and again, and her feeling for him was friendliness, a
friendliness she thanked God for, and nothing more. She told herself
all this, as many a woman has told herself before, and she fancied, as
many another good and virtuous woman has fancied, that she believed
it.

When Annie entered her workroom she looked up with a wistful smile of
welcome, but the sight of the clouds obscuring the sunshine of the
girl's face stopped her sewing-machine at once, and ready sympathy
found prompt expression in her gentle voice.

"What is it, dear?" she inquired. "You look--you look as if you, too,
were in trouble."

Annie tried to smile back in response. But it was a poor attempt. She
had been thinking so hard on her way to Eve. She had been calculating
and figuring so keenly in her woman's way. And curiously enough she
had managed to make the addition of two and two into four. She felt
that she must not hesitate now, or the courage to display the accuracy
of her calculation, and at the same time help her friend, would
evaporate.

"Trouble?" she echoed absently. "Trouble enough for sure, but not for
me, Eve," she stepped round to the girl's side and laid a protecting
arm about her shoulders. "You can quit those fears you once told me
of. I--think he's safe away."

Had Annie needed confirmation of her deductive logic she had it. The
look of absolute horror which suddenly leaped into Eve's drawn face
was overwhelming. Annie's arm tightened round her shoulders, for she
thought the distraught woman was about to faint.

"Don't say a word, Eve, dear. Don't you--now don't you," she cried.
"I'm going to do the talking. But first I'll just shut the door." She
crossed to the door, speaking as she went. "You've just got to sit an'
listen, while I tell you all about it. An' when we've finished, dear,"
she said, coming back to her place beside her, "ther's just one thing,
an' only one person we've got to think an' speak about. It's Jim
Thorpe."

Annie's intuition must have been something approaching the abnormal,
for she gave E