"Women are all alike in some ways. They never dare let go entirely and plunge! They hold on to something, get frightened, and scurry back to tradition. Three weeks ago Spaulding sent for her--for Marian. He'd lost everything; was ill and needed her. She went! I found a note--that's all." "Well!" Then having said that one word, Sandy sought about in his confused mind for another. Again he said, "Well!" and waited. "I--I cannot be happy without her. The longer I stay away the stronger her claim seems to me. I must go back and--try again." "Try--what?" Sandy felt the cool, wet outer air touch his face as he leaned forward, for at last Lans Treadwell had aroused him. He was not, however, thinking of Lans and his yearnings; he was thinking of a little, unknown woman who was following the gleam of her conscience, while love, selfish love, was ready to spring upon her with its demands, before she had wrestled with and solved her own problem. "Try--what?" "To get her away from Spaulding; get her back to me and--happiness. We were happy, God knows we were!" "If you--if she were happy, then her going proved something stronger than happiness called her." "Women are like that. They hold the world back by their conventions and conservations. They ask for freedom and--and equality, and then they cling to tradition in spite of all." "I reckon," Sandy's eyes were troubled and tender, "I reckon we-all better keep our hands off for a while and watch out to see them, the women, solve what is their business. They-all may want freedom and the rest--but it must be--as they see freedom and equality, Lans. I'm mighty sure in every woman's heart there is the beginning of a path leading--out and up, that they can find better alone. Why don't you wait until--until this little"--Sandy dropped into the sweet "lil"--"this little woman comes to you." "She'd never come!" Lans half groaned; "you do not know how tradition would hold her there. She'd starve rather than to call me now." Sandy was thoughtful a moment. He saw that Treadwell probably was right there, but a strange sense of protection rose in his heart. He felt he must protect that distant, strange woman from Lans in his present mood. "Then I reckon you better stand off and watch unseen, Lans." Sandy made a bold stroke: "Are you thinking of her only? I'm mighty sure, Treadwell, in a case like this you ought not, you--dare not think of any one but her!" The bald, rigid reasoning struck Lans Treadwell like the cold draught from the open window. "Good God! Sand," he ejaculated, "let me shut that sash down. The cold gets into your heart as if it were driven by some infernal machine." Sandy got up and pulled the glass down sharply, but he could not, thereby, bring comfort to Lans' conscience. "What do you mean by a case like this, Sand? No case between man and woman can be separated that way. Her need is my need; mine is hers!" "Is it?" "Thunder! Sand, of course it is."