a
carven image, and held herself still in her dream of fantasy. She hardly
knew where she was in these days. This was not the world as she had
known it. Bound beyond bound of possibility lay over its horizon. There
had been her former world, full of disappointments, lacking in
opportunities for picturesque morals, and Markham MacLeod had walked
into it, and turned on a light under which the whole place glittered. He
had caused things to be forever different. One such illumination made
all things possible. She felt like an adventurer setting sail. There in
the room where he had talked to her, she sat and thought of him and even
felt him near. The great stories flashed out before her, as if she
turned page after page. Dante--how many times did he see Beatrice? She
must look that up. But once would be enough, once for souls to recognize
each other and then be forever faithful. At a step in the hall she
recalled herself. It seemed as if everybody interrupted her in her
passionate musings. This was Madam Fulton, and Electra remembered she
had something to say to her. Madam Fulton looked very tired and irked in
some way, as if she found the daily burden hard to bear. Electra rose,
and waited scrupulously for her to sit.

"Billy Stark comes back to-morrow," said Madam Fulton. She took a chair,
and laid her head back wearily.

"When does he sail?"

"Next week. You go Wednesday. He goes Saturday."

Electra dared not remind her of that wild threat of marrying Billy Stark
and sailing with him. Her grandmother looked a pathetically old woman,
and such fantasy seemed to have withdrawn into its own place.

"Grandmother," she began delicately. She had a fear of disturbing
something frail that might fall to pieces of its own weakness.

"Well."

"Shall you stay on here?"

Madam Fulton roused herself.

"No," she said. "I am going to Bessie Grant's. She'll help me pull
myself together, and in the fall I shall move back to town."

Electra came awake to her pathetic look.

"You are not feeling well, grandmother," she said solicitously.

"Feeling well!" The old lady repeated it with a fractious emphasis. "I'm
worn out."

"Is it anything particular, grandmother?"

"Billy Stark is going away, isn't he? Isn't that particular enough? He's
the only human creature left, except Bessie Grant and that pretty girl."

"Rose MacLeod?"

"Yes; but she's too young. She tires me; you all tire me, all but Billy
and Bessie Grant. No, you