Mrs. Preston started, and her hand closed instinctively upon the gate, as
if to bar further entrance to her privacy. Then without reply she opened
the gate, led the way across the tiny lawn, and unlocked the cottage door.
They entered a large room, from which some narrow stairs led to the
chambers above. Floor and walls were bare, and the only furniture consisted
of two wooden chairs, a small coal-stove, and a pine table of considerable
size. This was covered with books, school exercises, and a few dishes. Mrs.
Preston brusquely flung off her cape and hat, and faced the doctor.

"I might as well tell you the main thing before you see him. He--"

"That is scarcely necessary," Sommers replied gently. "I probably know what
you are thinking of."

A flush, caused by the revealed shame, crept over her face, lighting it to
the extreme corners under the temples and ears. As she stood there,
humiliated, yet defiant of him and of the world, Sommers remembered the
first time he had seen her that night at the hospital. He read her,
somehow, extraordinarily well; he knew the misery, the longing, the anger,
the hate, the stubborn power to fight. Her deep eyes glanced at him
frankly, willing to be read by this stranger out of the multitude of men.
They had no more need of words now than at that first moment in the
operating room at St. Isidore's. They were man and woman, in the presence
of a fate that could not be softened by words.

"You are right," she said softly. "Yet sometime I want to tell you
things--not now. I will go and see how he is."

When she had left the room, Sommers examined the few objects about him in
the manner of a man who draws his conclusions from innumerable,