“Cherry, my darling—­my dearest!” Peter said.  “I will take care of you.  Only trust me for a few days more, and we will be away from it all.  And now you put it all out of your mind, and run in and go to bed.  You’re exhausted, and if Alix gets the eight o’clock train she will be here in a few minutes.  I’ll wander down the road a little way, and meet the car if she drives it up.”

“Good-night!” she breathed, and he saw the white gown flicker against the soft light on the lawn, and saw the black shadow creeping by it, before she mounted the porch steps, and was gone.

CHAPTER XVII

Swept along by a passionate excitement that seemed actually to consume her, Cherry lived through the next three days.  Alix noticed her mood, and asked her more than once what caused it.  Cherry would press a hot cheek to hers, smile with eyes full of pain, and flutter away.  She was well, she was quite all right, only she—­she was afraid Martin would summon her soon—­and she didn’t want to go to him—!

Alix was puzzled, watching her sister with anxious eyes.  The cleaning and refurnishing of the old home was proceeding rapidly, and Alix feared that the constant memory of the old times would be too much for Cherry.  She tried to induce her to rest, to spend this morning or that afternoon in the hammock, but Cherry gently but irresistibly refused.  Her one hope was to be busy, to tire her brain and body before night.

Suspecting something gravely amiss, Alix tried to win her confidence regarding Martin.  But briefly, quickly, and with a sort of affectionate and apologetic impatience, Cherry refused to discuss him.

“I shall not go back to him!” she said, breathing hard, and with the air of being more absorbed in what she was doing than what she was saying.  She and Alix were dusting the books in their father’s old library, and arranging them on the shelves, on a quiet September morning.

“But, Cherry, dear, you were saying yesterday that you dreaded his sending for you!” Alix said, in a troubled surprise.

“Yes, I know I was!” Cherry admitted, quickly.

“But did you mean that you are really going to leave him?” the older sister questioned.  And as Cherry was silent she repeated:  “Are you going to leave him, dear?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do!” Cherry half sobbed.

“But, dearest—­dearest, you’re only twenty-four; don’t you think you might feel better about it as time goes on?” Alix urged.  “Now that the money is all yours, Cherry, and you can have this nice home to come to now and then, isn’t it different?”

Cherry, an old volume in her hand, was looking at her steadily.

“You don’t understand, Sis!” she said.

“I understand that you don’t love Martin,” Alix said, perplexed.  “But can’t people who don’t love each other live together in peace?” she added, with a half smile.