“We met Herbert on our way up from the station:  he was standing in front of the ‘Gazette’ office, laughing and talking with Sudden’s barkeeper.  He greeted Phil with cordiality, in spite of the latter’s distant bearing, and told him Grace would be greatly pleased at his arrival.

“‘I suppose she will be glad to see me,’ said Phil, as we passed on.  And she was glad, very glad, to see him, but she was far from being made happy by his coming.  I sent a note out to her, and Phil and I followed shortly after.  I did not watch their meeting,—­I thought, somehow, that no one ought to see it,—­but I knew he took her in his arms; and when she came out on the porch to bring me in there were tears in her eyes.

“We all sat and talked for a long while, Grace with her hand in Phil’s and her eyes on his face, when she was not looking anxiously after my awkward attempts at caring for her baby; for of course Nannie had been brought out almost the first thing.  I think, from the way in which she carefully avoided asking him his reasons for coming back, that she divined what they were.  I imagined that she blamed me as being the prime cause; but there was nothing I could say to undeceive her.  In fact, I thought it better for her to believe so than to know the truth.

“‘She is miserably unhappy, George,’ said Phil gloomily, as we walked away.  ’But you were right not to tell me.  I can do nothing to help her:  I cannot even openly sympathize with her.  It would have been better to have kept on thinking she was happy:  there was a bitter kind of satisfaction to me in that, but still it was a satisfaction.’

“Nevertheless Phil did not go back to the mountains.  He stayed on here for a month or more, dividing his time pretty equally between my office and Grace’s little parlor.  He very seldom met Herbert.  Now and then they would be together at the cottage for half an hour, if Herbert happened to come home while he was there, and when they met on the street they would merely pass the time of day.

“One evening before going to supper I waited until after seven o’clock for Phil to come in, and just as I had given him up, and was starting away alone, he entered the office, looking pale as a ghost, and evidently in great distress of spirit.

“‘For God’s sake, Phil, what is the matter?’ I exclaimed, as he sank upon the sofa and covered his face with his hands.

“‘Go away, George:  go away and leave me,’ was all he said; then he got up and began walking violently up and down the room.  At last he came near me and put his hand on my shoulder.  ’I’ve killed her, George, I am afraid; At least I have killed him right before her eyes, and she may never get over it.  I didn’t mean to, George, you know that; but he came home drunk, and I had gone to bid Grace good-by,—­for I had made up my mind, George, to leave to-morrow,—­and he came in.  We had been talking of father, and Grace was very sad and wretched, and there were tears