“I’ve always told you I could help you,” he went on, with tranquil earnestness, “and I could.  You’ve too many burdens to carry alone—­burdens that don’t belong to you, but which, I know, you’ll never lay down.  Well, I’ll share them.  There’s Wayne, now.  He’s too much for you, by yourself—­I don’t mean from the material point of view, but—­the whole thing.  It wears on you.  It’s bound to.  Wayne is my friend just as much as yours.  He’s my responsibility—­so long as you take it in that light.  I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately—­and I see how, in my house—­could put him up—­ideally.”

Still pressing her handkerchief against her lips with her right hand, she put out her left in a gesture of deprecation.  He understood it as one of encouragement, and went on.

“You must come and look at my house.  You’ve never really seen it, and I think you’d like it.  I think you’d like—­everything I’ve got everything to make you happy; and if you’ll only let me do it, you’ll make me happy, too.”

She felt able to speak at last.  Her eyes were still brimming as she turned toward him, but brimming only as pools are when the rain is over.

“I want you to be happy.  You’re so good ... and kind ... and you’ve done so much for me ... you deserve it.”

She turned away from him again.  With her arm on the woodwork of the window, she rested her forehead rather wearily on her hand.  He understood so little of what was passing within her that she found it a relief to suspend for the minute her comedy of spontaneous happiness, letting her heart ache unrestrainedly.  Her left hand hanging limp and free, she made no effort to withdraw it when she felt him clasp it in his own.  Since she had subscribed to the treaty months ago, since she had insisted on doing it rightly or wrongly, it made little difference when and how she carried the conditions out.  So they stood hand in hand together, tacitly, but, as each knew, quite effectually, plighted.  In her silence, her resignation, her evident consent he read the proof of that love which, to his mind, no longer needed words.

* * * * *

Late that night, after he had gone away, she wrote to Evie, beseeching her to be true to Ford.  The letter was so passionate, so little like herself, that she was afraid of destroying it if she waited till morning, so she posted it without delay.  The answer came within forty-eight hours, in the shape of a telegram from Evie.  She was coming to town at once, though it wanted still three or four days to Ford’s arrival.

It was a white little Evie, with drawn face, who threw herself into Miriam’s arms at the station, clutching at her with a convulsive sob.

“Miriam, I can’t do it,” she whispered, in a kind of terror.  “They say he’s going to be put in—­jail!”

Her voice rose on the last word, so that one or two people paused in their rush past to glance at the pitifully tragic little face.