Edith had driven over to the junction earlier than was necessary, because she had wanted to get away from her father and mother.  “They are afraid he’ll fall in love with me,” she thought, hotly; “if he ever does, nothing they can say shall separate us.  Nothing!  But mother’ll try to influence him to marry that dreadful creature, and father will say things about ‘honor,’ so he’ll feel he ought never to marry—­anybody.  Oh, they are lambs,” she said, setting her teeth; “but they mustn’t keep Maurice from being happy!” At the station, as she sat in the buggy flecking her whip idly, and waiting for Maurice’s train, her whole mind was on the defensive.  “He has a right to be happy.  He has a right to marry again ... but they needn’t worry about me!” she thought.  “I’ve never grown up to Maurice.  But whatever happens, he shan’t marry that woman!”

When Maurice got off the train there was a blank moment when she did not recognize him.  As a careworn man came up to her with an outstretched hand and a friendly, “This is awfully nice in you, Skeezics!” she said, with a gasp, “Maurice!” He had aged so that he looked, she thought, as old as Eleanor.  But they were both laboriously casual, until the usual remarks upon the weather, and the change in the time-table, had been exhausted.

It was Edith who broke into reality—­Maurice had taken the reins, and they were jogging slowly along.  “Maurice,” she said, “how is Jacky?” His start was so perceptible that she said, “You don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t mind anything you could say to me, Edith.  I’m grateful to you for asking.”

“I want to help you about him,” she said.

He put out his left hand and gripped hers.  Then he said:  “I’m going to do my best for the little fellow.  I’ve botched my own life, Edith;—­of course you know that?  But he shan’t botch his, if I can help it!”

“I think you can help it,” Edith said.

His heart contracted; yet it was what he had expected.  The idealism of an absolutely pure woman.  “Well,” he said, heavily, “of course I’ve got to do what I honestly think is the light thing.”

“Are you sure,” she said, “that you know what the right thing is?  You mustn’t make a mistake.”

“I may be said to have made my share,” he told her, dryly.

She did not answer that; she said, passionately, “Maurice, I’d give anything in the world if I could help you!”

“Don’t talk that way,” he commanded, harshly.  “I’m human!  So please don’t be kind to me, Edith; I can’t stand it.”

Instantly her heart pounded in her throat:  “He cares.  Oh, they can’t separate us.  But they’ll try to.” ...  The rest of the drive was rather silent.  On the porch at Green Hill the two older friends were waiting to welcome him. ("Don’t let’s leave them alone,” Henry Houghton had said, with a worried look; which made his wife, in spite of her own uneasiness, smile,