He went out, and came in again with one end of a trunk, as if he had been giving the man a hand with it into the house at home, and she suffered him as passively as she had suffered him to do her such services all her life. Then he took her hand laxly in his, and stooped down for another chary kiss. “Good by, Marcia.” “Why, father! Are you going to _leave_ me?” she faltered. He smiled in melancholy irony at the bewilderment, the childish forgetfulness of all the circumstances, which her words expressed. “Oh, no! I'm going to take you with me.” His sarcasm restored her to a sense of what she had said, and she ruefully laughed at herself through her tears. “What am I talking about? Give my love to mother. When will you come again?” she asked, clinging about him almost in the old playful way. “When you want me,” said the Squire, freeing himself. “I'll write!” she cried after him, as he went down the steps; and if there had been, at any moment, a consciousness of her cruelty to him in her heart, she lost it, when he drove away, in her anxious waiting for Bartley's return. It seemed to her that, though her father had refused to see him, his visit was of happy augury for future kindness between them, and she was proudly eager to tell Bartley what good advice her father had given her. But the sight of her husband suddenly turned these thoughts to fear. She trembled, and all that she could say was, “I know father will be all right, Bartley.” “How?” he retorted, savagely. “By the way he abused me to you? Where is he?” “He's gone,--gone back.” “I don't care where he's gone, so he's gone. Did he come to take you home with him? Why didn't you go?--Oh, Marcia!” The brutal words had hardly escaped him when he ran to her as if he would arrest them before their sense should pierce her heart. She thrust him back with a stiffly extended arm. “Keep away! Don't touch me!” She walked by him up the stairs without looking round at him, and he heard her close their door and lock it. XVI. Bartley stood for a moment, and then went out and wandered aimlessly about till nightfall. He went out shocked and frightened at what he had done, and ready for any reparation. But this mood wore away, and he came back sullenly determined to let her make the advances toward reconciliation, if there was to be one. Her love had already made his peace, and she met him in the dimly lighted little hall with a kiss of silent penitence and forgiveness. She had on her hat and shawl, as if she had been waiting for him to come and take her out to tea; and on their way to the restaurant she asked him of his adventure among the newspapers. He told her briefly, and when they sat down at their table he took out the precious order and showed it to her. But its magic was gone; it was only an order for twenty-five dollars, now; and two hours ago it had been success, rapture, a common hope and a common joy. They scarcely spoke of it, but talked soberly of indifferent things.