the love returned. The vivid experiences
of the past months which had blinded her to the quieter light of home faded
away into darkness. Septimus in urgent need, Emmy and Clem Sypher filled
her thoughts. She felt thankful that Sypher, strong and self-reliant, was
there to be her ally, should her course with Septimus be difficult. Between
them they could surely rescue the ineffectual being from whatever dangers
assailed him. But what could they be? The question racked her. Did it
concern Emmy? A child, she knew, had just been born. A chill fear crept on
her lest some tragedy had occurred through Septimus's folly. From him any
outrageous senselessness might be expected, and Emmy herself was scarcely
less irresponsible than her babe. She reproached herself for having
suggested his marriage with Emmy. Perhaps in his vacant way he had acted
entirely on her prompting. The marriage was wrong. Two helpless children
should never have taken on themselves the graver duties of life toward
each other and, future generations.

If it were a case in which a man's aid were necessary, there stood Sypher,
a great pillar of comfort. Unconsciously she compared him with the man with
whom she had come in contact during her travels--and she had met many of
great charm and strength and knowledge. For some strange reason which she
could not analyze, he towered above them all, though in each separate
quality of character others whom she could name surpassed him far. She knew
his faults, and in her lofty way smiled at them. Her character as goddess
or guardian angel or fairy patroness of the Cure she had assumed with the
graciousness of a grown-up lady playing charades at a children's party. His
occasional lapses from the traditions of her class jarred on her fine
susceptibilities. Yet there, in spite of all, he stood rooted in her life,
a fact, a puzzle, a pride and a consolation. The other men paled into
unimportant ghosts before him, and strayed shadowy through the limbo of her
mind. Till now she had not realized it. Septimus, however, had always dwelt
in her heart like a stray dog whom she had rescued from vagrancy. He did
not count as a man. Sypher did. Thus during the long, tedious hours of the
journey home the two were curiously mingled in her anxious conjectures, and
she had no doubt that Sypher and herself, the strong and masterful, would
come to the deliverance of the weak.

* * * * *

Septimus, who had re