tramping all over that flower--bed. How
_can_ Miss Chesley?"

The negligence of Miss Chesley enabled her to make her escape, and when
he rejoined her in the garden he accepted the diversion her ingenuity
had found. In a short time he took his leave with no more display of
emotion than on previous occasions.

But he left her troubled and shaken. He left her with the feeling that
the foundations of life, as she was leading it, were insecure. Where
she had thought she was strong and determined she began to see she was
weak and irresolute. She began to see herself as a woman with such an
instinctive need of protection that sooner or later she would accept
it--from some one. If from any one, why not from this man? She liked
him; she was sure of his goodness and kindness. He was already fond of
the children, and the children of him. Moreover, she could be a mother
to him, and he needed mothering, as any one could see. It might not be a
romantic marriage, but it could easily be an ideal one, as far as
anything ideal still lay within the range of her possibilities. It could
be ideal in the sense of a sincere affection both on his side and hers,
and a common life for perhaps higher aims than she had lived with Chip.

It would doubtless be the final stage to the process of making Chip
understand. She wouldn't marry--she couldn't--without some inner
reference to him, without a vital reference to him. If she did marry he
would know at last to what he had forced her. He would have forced her
to looking to another man for what she should have had from him--and
then he would be repentant. Surely he would be repentant then! If he
wasn't he would never be. All her efforts would have become in vain. She
would feel that for any good she had accomplished she might as well have
stayed with him. That thought choked her with its implication of agony
escaped--and bliss forfeited.

But it was looking too far ahead. Everything was looking too far ahead.
Noel Ordway had not asked her to marry him--and might never do so. She
might have scared him off. She hoped she had. That would be simpler. She
was not so inexperienced as to be without the knowledge that marriage
with him would raise as many difficulties as it would settle--perhaps
more. The day came when she had to point that out to him.

But it did not come at once. Nearly a week passed without his return.
For Edith it was a week of some disappointment, and a good deal of
relief. If she w