Clifford, coming duly to see her every evening, never dreamed of the thoughts that were darkening her blue eyes.  He sat in the big chair opposite Malcolm’s, and they talked about real estate, and about the various business ventures of the village.  At nine o’clock Malcolm went stiffly upstairs, attended by Lydia, and then Martie took her father’s seat, and Clifford hitched his chair nearer.

He would ask her what she was sewing, and sometimes she laughed, spreading the ruffle of a petticoat over her knee, and refused to consider his questions.  They talked of little things pertaining to their engagement:  Martie was sure somebody suspected it, Clifford had been thinking of the Yellowstone for a wedding trip, and had brought folders to study.  Rarely they touched upon politics, or upon the questions of the day.

His opinions were already stiff-jointed, those of an elderly man.  He did not believe in all this prohibition agitation, he believed that a gentleman always knew where to stop in the matter of wine.  What right had a few temperance fanatics to vote that seven hundred acres of his, Clifford Frost’s property, should be made valueless because they happened to be planted to grapes?

He disapproved of this agitation concerning the social evil.  There had always been women in that life, and there always would be.  They were in it because they liked it.  They didn’t have to choose it.  Why didn’t they go into somebody’s kitchen, and save money, and have good homes, if they wanted to?  He told Martie a little story that he thought was funny of one of these women.  It was the sort of story that a man might tell the widow who was to be his wife.  It made Martie want to cry.

She had always felt herself too ignorant to form an opinion of these things.  But she found herself rapidly forming opinions now, and they were not Clifford’s opinions.

Three days after his departure, Dean Silver wrote her briefly.  John was “taking it very quietly, but didn’t seem to know just what had happened.”  He, Dean, hoped to get the younger man safely on board the vessel before this mood broke.  He had therefore engaged passage on the Nippon Maru, for Thursday, four days ahead.  They were all in San Francisco, Mrs. Silver and the little girl had come down with them, and John was interested in the steamer, and seemed perfectly docile.  He never mentioned Martie.

This letter threw her into an agony of indecision.  There were a few moments when she planned to go down to the city herself, and see him—­hear him again.  Just a few minutes of John’s eyes and his voice, of the intoxication of being so passionately loved—!

She put aside this impulse, and went to write a telegram.  But her hand trembled as she did so, and her soul sickened.  What could she offer him, what but pain and fresh renunciation?

She had made many mistakes in her life.  But through them all a certain underlying principle had kept her safe.  Could she fling that all aside now; that courage that had made her, a frightened girl of twenty, come with her unborn baby, away from the man whose marriage to her was in question, the faith that had helped her to kneel calm and brave beside the child who had gone?