sort of man you'd fancy, that's all."

Stella refrained from any comment on this. She had no intention of
admitting to Charlie that marriage with Jack Fyfe commended itself to
her chiefly as an avenue of escape from a well-nigh intolerable
condition which he himself had inflicted upon her. Her pride rose in
arms against any such belittling admission. She admitted it frankly to
herself,--and to Fyfe,--because Fyfe understood and was content with
that understanding. She desired to forget that phase of the
transaction. She told herself that she meant honestly to make the best
of it.

Benton turned again to his papers. He did not broach the subject again
until in the distance the squat hull of the _Panther_ began to show on
her return from the Springs. Then he came to where Stella was putting
the last of her things into her trunk. He had some banknotes in one
hand, and a check.

"Here's that ninety I borrowed, Stell," he said. "And a check for your
back pay. Things have been sort of lean around here, maybe, but I still
think it's a pity you couldn't have stuck it out till it came smoother.
I hate to see you going away with a chronic grouch against me. I suppose
I wouldn't even be a welcome guest at the wedding?"

"No," she said unforgivingly. "Some things are a little too--too
recent."

"Oh," he replied casually enough, pausing in the doorway a second on his
way out, "you'll get over that. You'll find that ordinary, everyday
living isn't any kid-glove affair."

She sat on the closed lid of her trunk, looking at the check and money.
Three hundred and sixty dollars, all told. A month ago that would have
spelled freedom, a chance to try her luck in less desolate fields. Well,
she tried to consider the thing philosophically; it was no use to bewail
what might have been. In her hands now lay the sinews of a war she had
forgone all need of waging. It did not occur to her to repudiate her
bargain with Jack Fyfe. She had given her promise, and she considered
she was bound, irrevocably. Indeed, for the moment, she was glad of
that. She was worn out, all weary with unaccustomed stress of body and
mind. To her, just then, rest seemed the sweetest boon in the world. Any
port in a storm, expressed her mood. What came after was to be met as it
came. She was too tired to anticipate.

It was a pale, weary-eyed young woman, dressed in the same plain
tailored suit she had worn into the country, who was cuddled to Mrs.
Howe's plump