“Yes; he knew about Cliff.”  But Martie’s tone was so heavy, and the fashion in which she raised a hand to brush the hair from her white forehead was so suggestive of pain, that Sally felt a little tremor of apprehension.

“Martie—­you don’t—­care, too?” she asked fearfully.

“With every fibre of my soul and body!” Martie answered, in a low, moody voice from the doorway.  “Sally—­Sally—­Sally—­to be free!” she went on, speaking, as Sally was vaguely aware, more for the relief of her own heart than for any effect on her sister.  “To have him free!  We always liked each other—­loved each other, I think.  What a life—­what joy we would have!  Oh, I can’t bear it.  I can’t bear to have the days go by, and the years go by, and never—­never see him or hear him again!  I can’t help Cliff; I can’t help John’s wife; I can’t help it if he seems odd and boyish and different to other people—!  That’s what makes him John—­what he is!”

“I never dreamed it,” Sally marvelled.

“I never dreamed it myself, a week ago.  I always had a sort of special feeling toward John, and I knew he had toward me.  But I’ve been a romantic sort of fool all my life—­my Prince Charming had to come dashing up on a white horse—­I didn’t recognize him because he was a little clerk in a furniture store, and married to the stupidest woman the Lord ever made!”

Sally laughed in spite of herself.  Martie turned from the dimness of the doorway, and came into the hot, clean little room.  She sat down at the table, and spread her arms across it, locking her white hands.

“It’s all so funny.  Sally,” she said childishly.  “A week ago, I was sailing along, humbly grateful and happy because Cliff loved me.  To-day John Dryden sails for a year in the Orient.  And between those few days he drifts in here just long enough to bring my plans all tumbling about my ears.”

“I’m sorry!” Sally, busily setting bread, could say nothing more significant.  But as Martie remained silent, brooding eyes on her own fingers, the older sister added timidly:  “Do—­do you think perhaps you’ll get over that—­that feeling?”

“That is my only hope!” Martie said courageously.

“And after all,” Sally went on, eagerly, “what could he offer you?  Cliff is—­he’s devoted to you, and he’s steadiness itself!  And I do believe you would be perfectly contented if you just put the other thing out of your mind, and tried to make the greatest happiness possible out of your new life!  Lydia and Pa, and all of us, and Ruth and Teddy are all so happy about it And you know there’s no safety like the safety of being married to a good man!”

Martie laughed.

“You’re quite right, Sally!  But,” she added, her face growing serious again, “the terrible thing is this:  If I marry Cliff, I do it—­just a little—­with other things in view.  The children, as you say, and the good opinion of the town, and Pa’s happiness, and Len’s prosperity, and the pleasure of being mistress of the old house, and dear knows what!  Of course I like Cliff—­but I tell you frankly that I’m looking even now to the time when our honeymoon shall be over, and the first strangeness of—­well, of belonging to him is over!”