way. If it's a case of conscience, it may have satisfied itself by
offering money; if it didn't, you or Sylvia may hear from it again."

"It's just that that hurts and worries me,--the possibility that this
person may trouble Sylvia sometime when I am not here to help her. It's
an awful thing for a woman to go out into the world followed by a
shadow. It's so much worse for a woman; women are so helpless."

"Some of us, like me, are pretty tough, too. Sylvia will be able to take
care of herself; you don't need to worry about her. If that's gnawing
some man's conscience--and I reckon it is--you can forget all about it.
A man's conscience--the kind of man that would abandon a woman he had
married, or maybe hadn't married--ain't going to be a ghost that walks
often. You'd better go to bed, Andrew."

Kelton lingered to smoke a cigar in the open. He had enjoyed to-night an
experience that he had not known in years--that of unburdening himself
to a kindly, sympathetic, and resourceful woman.

While they talked of her, Sylvia sat in her window-seat in the dark
above looking at the stars. She lingered there until late, enjoying the
cool air, and unwilling to terminate in sleep so eventful a day. She
heard presently her grandfather's step below as he "stood watch,"
marking his brief course across the dim garden by the light of his
cigar. Sylvia was very happy. She had for a few hours breathed the
ampler ether of a new world; but she was unconscious in her dreaming
that her girlhood, that had been as tranquil water safe from current and
commotion, now felt the outward drawing of the tide.