graph Isabel, in her
mother's name, to come home. As he was starting, Mrs. Morris drew Ruth
aside and whispered something about Godfrey. To which Ruth softly
replied, with an affectionate twist in her smile, "It couldn't hurry
him; he's already on the way."

In the room next that in which her son-in-law lay asleep under anodynes
the little mother's odd laugh was turned all to moan. "Oh!--ho--ho!" she
sighed in solitude, "if Arthur could have learned from Godfrey how to
wait, or even if Isabel could but have learned from Ruth how to keep one
waiting!"

She paused at a window that looked over the garden and into the street.
Leonard passed. She turned quickly away, only sighing again,
"Oh!--ho--ho!" Her thought might have been kinder had she known he was
stabbing himself at every step with blame of all this woe.

"I ought to have foreseen," was his constant silent cry. "I am the one
who ought to have foreseen."

Lack of Sunday trains and two failures to connect kept Isabel from
arriving until nightfall of the third day, Wednesday. Arthur knew Mrs.
Morris had telegraphed for her; but to him that was only part of the
play under which he thought he and she were hiding the frightful truth.

On this day he had so outwitted his village physician as to be given the
freedom for which he ravened; liberty to take the air in his garden, as
understood by the doctor, but by him liberty to stand guard down at the
edge of that dark pool which would not freeze over,--liberty to take an
air sweet with the odors of the parting year, but crowded also with
distended eyes and strangling groans.

He was down there in the early starlight when Ruth drove softly into the
garden, bringing Isabel. Warily the mother came out into the pillared
porch, and silently received the house's mistress into her arms.

"He doesn't know," she said. "I couldn't tell him till you should come,
for fear of disappointing him."

The argument seemed strained, but no one said so, and with a whispered
good-night Ruth drove away, and the two went in. As they stole upstairs
they debated how Isabel had best reveal herself. "I'm terribly afraid
that won't work, blessing," said Mrs. Morris; "you'd better let me break
it to him, first."

"No, dearie, I don't think so. I haven't the shadow of a fear"--

"Oh, my darling child, you never have!"

"But I know him so well, mother. We have only to come unexpectedly face
to face and--Oh, I've seen the effect so often!" The