The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-11-27
CHAPTER I-Continued

ming Sne0 let MIN See-mau0 MIN De-
lIeve, anyhow-that she admired him,
had long admired him, as man. She
soon began confiding to him matters
that were entirely out Of the range Of
her business affairs. She told him
how unhappy she'd been with her hus-
band, how he'd neglected her and been
unfaithful to her. She said that at the
time of his death she'd been upon the
point Of leaving him. She told him
these things desperately. forlornly, I'M
der the stress Of what he had believed
to be q profound emotion. She put
him under the seal Of confidence. He
wasn't to tell anybody. She didn't
say in so many words that he wasn't
to tell his wife, but he knew that was
what she meant.
1t had thrilled him to be trusted
with intimacies like that; enormously
it set him up in his own estimation.
He must be something more than a
dull middle-aged failure when this
charming, rather worldly, young wom-
an could turn to him as her friend.
The time came when, on wishing
him good night, she held up her face
for kiss, as simply as child.
There'd been something almost unbe-
lievable to him about all this; that to
him-married and forty-six years old
1T should come unsought.
His response to her caresses was a
passionately made promise to himself
that he would not betray her trust in
him, that she should never find him
anything but the faithful, high-minded
friend she took him for.
Might the thing have worked out
better had he been less high-minded
about 1t? II he'd been simply a pre-
datory male taking as much as he
could get, rather than a quixotically
chivalrous fool?
As far as his present relation with
Julia was concerned he'd be no worse
off now, he grimly reflected, had the
episode with Ruth taken its natural
course. There were gusty, furious mo-
ments when he wished It had worked
out that way. A straightforward, mas
culine sin would be preferable thing
to feel guilty about, If he must feel
guilty. With that on his conscience
he could go back to Julia and tell her
he was sorry. He would be sorry, all
right. He'd feel, no doubt, like the
very devil, but as a sort Of back
ground to his repentance, wouldn't
there be comforting sense, not Of
achievement exactly, but Of regularity?
Anyhow, he wouldn't be obliged to
think of Ruth laughing at him now.
-
Whatever buoyancy he'd found in
the act Of running away. the sense of
adventure, Of truancy, evaporated
when he got on the train to go home
again. It did no good to run away,
he reflected, unless one could keep on
running. He couldn't. He had to turn
around and come back. There was his
Job, his stale, Improbable job, waiting
for him at the end Of the trip.
Ruth, thank God, wouldn't be wait
ing. She'd have gone by now, having
made the discovery that he wasn't
quite the abject thing she had taken
him for. There was some satisfaction
In that. He rubbed his eyes and won
dered why he'd tortured himself about
her so long.
But Julia, with the children, would
be waiting for him. He tried to i'm
agine her repentant Julia. Ed, on
going back to Buttermilk Brook, would
have told her that Ruth had sold her
house and was going away. and that
his father hadn't known Of the plan.
That would have convinced her that
she had done him a gross injustice.
He imagined her passionately regret
ting that she had written that savage
letter.
He had answered it an hour before
ne took the train to California, and
had felt at the time Of writing pretty
well satisfied with what he said. He'd
told her he was taking little run out
to California by way Of vacation
and he didn't expect to get home until
a few days after she did.
The substance of her letter he dealt
with in a single sentence, pretty care
fully and, he felt, satisfactorily
thought out. you'll have learned, no
doubt, from Ed that the ground for
your objection to returning to Lake
side no longer exists"
That was dlgnifled, he felt, and suf-
ficient. Julia had told him not to try
to justify himself, and he'd refrained
from doing so. It wasn't what she
wanted, Of course. She wanted him to
grovel; to promise her that he would
get rid Of Ruth. Whether he'd have
done that If Ruth hadn't of her own
accord packed up and gone away was
an academic question. She had done
it. and his wife's grievance was left,
so far as he could see, without leg
to stand on.
But his thoughts during the last day
of his trip were not so comfortable
The moment of his meeting with Julia
tomorrow obsessed him. How would