n door. The pretty game was
evolved to please the child and secure for the mother a privacy she
might not have got in any other way.

As Mary-Clare reached the "Place" this autumn day, she was a bit
breathless and stepped lightly as one does who approaches a shrine;
she went inside and, kneeling by the cracked but dustless hearth,
lighted a fire; then she took a seat by the rough table, clasped her
hands upon it and lifted her eyes to the words upon the opposite
wall.

Sitting so, a startling change came over the young face. It was like a
letting down of strong defences. The smile fled, the head bowed, and a
pitiful look of appeal settled from brow to trembling lips.

Mary-Clare had come to a sharp turn on her road and, as yet, she
could not see her way! She had drifted--she could, with Larry
away--but now he was coming home!

She had tried, God knew, for three long months to be sure. She _must_
be sure, she was like that; sure that she _felt_ her way to be the
_right_ way; so sure that, should she find it later the wrong way, she
could retrace her steps without remorse. It was the believing, at the
start, that she was doing right, that mattered.

Sitting in the quiet room with the autumn sunlight coming through the
clustering vines at window and door and falling upon her in dancing
patterns, the woman waited for guidance. The room became a place of
memory and vision.

Help would come, she still had the faith, but it must come at once for
her husband might at any hour return from one of his mysterious
business trips and there must be a decision reached before she met
him. She could not hope to make him understand her nor sympathize with
her; he and she, beyond the most ordinary themes, spoke different
languages. She had learned that.

She must take her stand alone; hold it alone; but the stand must seem
to her right and then she could go on. Like the flickering sunbeams
playing over her, the past came touching her memory with light and
shade, unconsciously preparing her for her decision. She was not
thinking, but thought was being formed.

The waves of memory swept Mary-Clare from her moorings. She was no
longer the harassed woman facing her problem in the clear light of
conviction; but the child, whose mistaken ideals of love and loyalty
had betrayed her so cruelly. Why had she who early had been taught by
Doctor Rivers to "use her woman brain," gone so utterly astray?

Why had she married Larry when she ne