She thought that she meant it. She thought it, even while her heart

was crying out in defense of the man he had maligned.

"How can one know the truth of such a thing?" she went on, unsteadily.

"One can only believe in one's friends."

"Mary," eagerly, "you've known Poole only for a few months. You've

known me always. I can give you a devotion equal to anybody's. Why

not drop all this contrariness--and come to me?"

"Why not?" she asked herself. Roger Poole was obscure, and destined to

be obscure. More than that, there would always be people like Porter

who would question his past. "It is the whispers that kill," Roger had

said. And people would always whisper.

She rose and walked to the end of the porch. Porter followed her, and

they stood looking down into the garden. It was in a riot of summer

bloom--and the fragrance rushed up to them.

The garden! And herself a flower! It was such things that Roger Poole

could say, and which Porter could never say. And he could not say them

because he could not think them. The things that Porter thought were

commonplace, the things which Roger thought were wonderful. If she

married Porter Bigelow, she would walk always with her feet firmly on

the ground. If she married Roger Poole they would fly in the upper air

together.

"Mary," Porter was insisting, "dear girl."

She held up her hand. "I won't listen," she said, almost passionately;

"don't imagine things about me, Porter. I have my work--and my

freedom--I won't give them up for anybody."

If she said the words with something less than her former confidence he

was not aware of it. How could he know that she was making a last

desperate stand?

When at last she sent him away, he went with an air of depression which

touched her.

"I've risked being thought a cad," he said, "but I had to do it."

"I know. I don't blame you, dear boy."

She gave him her hand upon it, and he went away, and she was left alone

in the moonlight.

And when the last echo of his purring car had died away into silence

she went down and sat in the garden on the bench beside the

hundred-leaved bush. Aunt Isabelle's light was still burning, and

presently she would go up and say "Good-night," but for the moment she

must be alone. Alone to face the doubts which were facing her.

Suppose, oh, suppose, that the things which Roger had told her about

his marriage had been distorted to make his story sound plausible?

Suppose the little wife had suffered, had been driven from him by

coldness, by cruelty? One never knew the real inner histories of such

domestic tragedies. There was Leila, for example, who knew nothing of

Barry's faults, and Barry had not told her. Might not other men have

faults which they dared not tell? The world was full of just such

tragedies.




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