in a year he did not believe.  But observation and common-sense told him that life without her must become easier and saner as time passed, and that to be forever caught up or thrown down by her varying moods toward him had ceased to be a self-respecting way of life.  This is what common-sense and experience told him; but his heart told him that he would love her always, and that if he could not have her he must simply die.

Sunday night, after she had gone to bed, Barbara lay in the darkness and asked herself questions.  Wilmot’s life had not been fine, but his love had been very fine, and for longer than she could remember.  Would it not be well to trust herself to such a love as that?  Had she the right to send it away begging?  Would it not be better, since marriage is a lottery, to grasp some things that in this case would be sure, instead of leaving everything to chance?  If he kept away from her long enough, his love would probably die, or at least reduce itself to a state of occasional melancholy agitation.  But if she belonged to him it would never die.  Of this their whole past seemed a sure proof.  If she married him he would always love her and be faithful to her; for her part she was wonderfully fond of him, and she believed that if she once actually committed herself to his care, she would be a good wife to him, and a loving.  Then why not?  She tried the effect of pretending that she had promised to marry him and meant to keep her word, and she found that the position, if only mentally, was strategically strong and secure.  She would make him happy; she herself would cease from troubling him and other men.  For her sake he would turn over new leaves and be everything that was fine.  She would be obedient and have no more difficult knots to untangle for herself.  Wilmot would simply cut them for her with a sure word, one way or the other.

She had not for a long time enjoyed so peaceful a night.  Hours passed, and she found that, without sleeping, she was becoming wonderfully rested.  For it is true that nothing so rests the thinker as unselfish thinking.

She had breakfast in her room, but was down in time to catch the business men’s train for town, or to be driven in Wilmot’s borrowed runabout, if he should ask her.  He did, and amid shouts of farewell and invitations to come again soon, they drove away together into the cool bright morning.

“Wilmot,” Barbara said, when they had passed the last outpost of the Bruces’ shrubbery and whirled into the turnpike, “I spent most of last night thinking.”

“You look fresh as a rosebud.”

She shook her head as if to shake off the dew, and said:  “I feel more rested than if I had slept soundly.  If you will marry me, Wilmot, I will make you a good wife.”

Wilmot’s heart leaped into his throat with joy, and then dropped as if into a deep abyss of doubt.  For all her confessions to him, and for all her promises of amendment, here was his darling Barbs unable to resist the temptation of hurting him again.  “One of her impulses,” he thought, and at once he was angry with her, and his heart yearned over her.