He stood for some time looking down at the post card; it did not seem possible that in the few months since those wonderful days, life could have been so cruel to them both. Lily married, and he himself-- Ellen came up when he was tying his tie. She stood behind him, watching him in the mirror. “I don't know what you've done to your hair, Willy,” she said; “it certainly looks queer.” “It usually looks queer, so why worry, heart of my heart?” But he turned and put an arm around her shoulders. “What would the world be without women like you, Ellen?” he said gravely. “I haven't done anything but my duty,” Ellen said, in her prim voice. “Listen, Willy. I saw Edith again to-day, and she told me to do something.” “To go home and take a rest? That's what you need.” “No. She wants me to tear up that marriage license.” He said nothing for a moment. “I'll have to see her first.” “She said it wouldn't be any good, Willy. She's made up her mind.” She watched him anxiously. “You're not going to be foolish, are you? She says there's no need now, and she's right.” “Somebody will have to look after her.” “Dan can do that. He's changed, since she went.” Ellen glanced toward Mrs. Boyd's empty room. “You've done enough, Willy. You've seen them through, all of them. I--isn't it time you began to think about yourself?” He was putting on his coat, and she picked a bit of thread from it, with nervous fingers. “Where are you going to-night, Willy?” “To the Cardews. Mr. Cardew has sent for me.” She looked up at him. “Willy, I want to tell you something. The Cardews won't let that marriage stand, and you know it. I think she cares for you. Don't look at me like that. I do.” “That's because you are fond of me,” he said, smiling down at her. “I'm not the sort of man girls care about, Ellen. Let's face that. The General Manager said when he planned me, 'Here's going to be a fellow who is to have everything in the world, health, intelligence, wit and the beauty of an Adonis, but he has to lack something, so we'll make it that'.” But Ellen, glancing up swiftly, saw that although his tone was light, there was pain in his eyes. He reflected on Edith's decision as he walked through the park toward the Cardew house. It had not surprised him, and yet he knew it had cost her an effort. How great an effort, man-like, he would never understand, but something of what she had gone through he realized. He wondered vaguely whether, had there never been a Lily Cardew in his life, he could ever have cared for Edith. Perhaps. Not the Edith of the early days, that was certain. But this new Edith, with her gentleness and meekness, her clear, suffering eyes, her strange new humility. She had sent him a message of warning about Akers, and from it he had reconstructed much of the events of the night she had taken sick. “Tell him to watch Louis Akers,” she had said. “I don't know how near Willy was to trouble the other night, Ellen, but they're going to try to get him.”