She had sensibly taken her landlady, old Mrs. Dimmick, into her confidence, and pleased to be part of the little intrigue, and perhaps pleased as well to rent her two best rooms to this charming stranger, the old lady protected the secret gallantly.  It was all much more simple than Rachael had feared it would be.  Nobody questioned her, nobody indeed paid attention to her; she wandered about in a blissful isolation as good for her tired soul as was the primitive life she led for her tired body.

Yet every one of the idle days left its mark upon her spirit; gradually a great many things that had seemed worth while in the old life showed their true and petty and sordid natures now; gradually the purifying waters of solitude washed her soul clean.  She began to plan for the future—­a future so different from the crowded and hurried past!

Warren Gregory’s letters came regularly, postmarked London, Paris, Rome.  They were utterly and wholly satisfying to Rachael, and they went far to make these days the happiest in her life.  Her heart would throb like a girl’s when she saw, on the little drop-leaf table in the hallway, the big square envelope addressed in the doctor’s fine hand; sometimes—­again like a girl—­she carried it down to the beach before breaking the seal, thrilled with a thousand hopes, unready to put them to the test.  Yesterday’s letter had said:  “My dearest,”—­had said:  “Do you realize that I will see you in five weeks?” Could to-day’s be half as sweet?

She was never disappointed.  The strong tide of his devotion for her rose steadily through letter after letter; in August the glowing letters of July seemed cold by contrast, in September every envelope brought her a flaming brand to add to the fires that were beginning to blaze within her.  In late September there was an interval; and Rachael told herself that now he was on the ocean—­now he was on the ocean—­

By this time the digging babies were gone, the beach was almost deserted.  Little office clerks, men and women, coming down for the two weeks of rest that break the fifty of work, still arrived on the late train Saturday, and went away on the last train two weeks from the following Sunday, but there were no more dances at the one big hotel, and some of the smaller hotels were closed.  The tall, plain, attractive woman—­with the three children and the baby, who drove over from Clark’s Hills every day, and, who, for all her graying hair and sun-bleached linens, seemed to be of Rachael’s own world—­still brought her shrieking and splashing trio to the beach, but she had confided to Mrs. Dimmick, who had known her for many summers, that even her long holiday was drawing to a close.  Mrs. Dimmick brought extra blankets down from the attic, and began to talk of seeing her daughter in California.  Rachael, drinking in the glory of the dying summer, found each day more exquisite than the last, and gratified her old hostess by expressing her desire to spend all the rest of her life in Quaker Bridge.