He decided not to write to Marcia of the change in his affairs, but to take the chance of finding something better before she returned. There was very little time for him to turn round, and he was still without a place or any prospect when she came home. It had sufficed with his acquaintance when he said that he had left the Events because he could not get on with Witherby; but he was very much astonished when it seemed to suffice with her. “Oh, well,” she said, “I am glad of it. You will do better by yourself; and I know you can earn just as much by writing on the different papers.” Bartley knew better than this, but he said, “Yes, I shall not be in a hurry to take another engagement just yet. But, Marsh,” he added, “I was afraid you would blame me,--think I had been reckless, or at fault--” “No,” she answered after a little pause, “I shall not do that any more. I have been thinking all these things over, while I was away from you, and I'm going to do differently, after this. I shall believe that you've acted for the best,--that you've not meant to do wrong in anything,--and I shall never question you or doubt you any more.” “Isn't that giving me rather too _much_ rope?” asked Bartley, with lightness that masked a vague alarm lest the old times of exaction should be coming back with the old times of devotion. “No; I see where my mistake has always been. I've always asked too much, and expected too much, even when I didn't ask it. Now, I shall be satisfied with what you don't do, as well as what you do.” “I shall try to live up to my privileges,” said Bartley, with a sigh of relief. He gave her a kiss, and then he unclasped Kinney's nugget from his watch-chain, and fastened it on the baby's necklace, which lay in a box Marcia had just taken from her trunk. She did not speak; but Bartley felt better to have the thing off him; Marcia's gentleness, the tinge of sadness in her tone, made him long to confess himself wrong in the whole matter, and justly punished by Ricker's contempt and Witherby's dismissal. But he did not believe that he could trust her to forgive him, and he felt himself unable to go through all that without the certainty of her forgiveness. As she took the things out of her trunk, and laid them away in this drawer and that, she spoke of events in the village, and told who was dead, who was married, and who had gone away. “I stayed longer than I expected, a little, because father seemed to want me to. I don't think mother's so well as she used to be, I--I'm afraid she seems to be failing, somehow.” Her voice dropped to a lower key, and Bartley said, “I'm sorry to hear that. I guess she isn't failing. But of course she's getting on, and every year makes a difference.” “Yes, that must be it,” she answered, looking at a bundle of collars she had in her hand, as if absorbed in the question as to where she should put them. Before they slept that night she asked, “Bartley, did you hear about Hannah Morrison?”