“I shouldn’t mind getting old, Alice,” Rachael said, “if I were like you; you’re so temperate and unselfish and sweet that no one could help loving you!  Besides, you don’t sit around worrying about what people think, you just go on cutting out cookies, and putting buttons on gingham dresses, and let other people do the worrying!”

And suddenly, to the other woman’s concern, she burst into bitter crying, and covered her face with her hands.

“I’m so frightened, Alice!” sobbed Rachael.  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but I feel—­I feel that something is all wrong!  I don’t seem to have any hold on Warren any more—­you can’t explain such things—­but I’m—­”

She got to her feet, a splendid figure of tragedy, and walked blindly to the end of the long porch, where she stood staring down at the heaving, sun-flooded expanse of the blue sea, and at the roofs of little Quaker Bridge beyond the bar.  Lazy waves were creaming, in great interlocked circles, on the white beach, the air was as clear as crystal on the cloudless September morning.  Not a breath of wind stirred the tufted grass on the dunes; down by the weather-blown bath-houses a dozen children, her own among them, were shouting and splashing in the spreading shallows.

Alice Valentine, her plain, sweet face a picture of sympathy, sat dumb and unmoving.  In her own heart she felt that Rachael’s was a terrible situation.  What was the matter with Warren Gregory, anyway, wondered Alice; he had a beautiful wife, and beautiful children, and if George, with all his summer substituting and hospital work, could come to his family, as he did come every Friday night, it was upon no claim of hard work that Warren could remain away.  As a matter of fact, Alice knew it was not for work that he stayed, for George, the least critical of friends, had once or twice told her of yachting parties in which Warren had participated—­men’s parties, of which Rachael perhaps might not have disapproved, but of which Rachael certainly did not know.  George had told her vaguely that Greg liked to play golf on Saturday afternoons, and sleep late on Sunday, and seemed to feel it more of a rest than coming down to the shore.

“I am a fool to break down this way,” said Rachael, interrupting her guest’s musings to come back to her chair, and showing a composed face despite her red eyes, “but my—­my heart is heavy to-day!” Something in the simple dignity of the words brought the tears to Alice’s eyes.  She held out her hand and Rachael took it and clung to it, as she went on:  “I had a birthday yesterday—­and Warren forgot it!”

“They all do that!” Alice said cheerfully.  “George never remembers mine!”

“But Warren always has before,” Rachael said, smiling sadly, “and--and it came to me last night—­I didn’t sleep very well—­that I am thirty-four, and—­and I have given him all I have!”

Again tears threatened her self-control, but she fought them resolutely, and in a moment was herself again.