"No, Madge," I replied calmly. "I shan't go away, and neither shall you. You don't seem to know what's best for yourself, so I will tell you. You're going to stay right here with me, and work and study and learn. You are married to Oliver Vars and you're to make a success of it if it kills you; and it won't kill you. You're going to make him and the rest of us all proud of you before you get through and I am going to help you. Do you hear me? We're going to work it out together. You've got it in you. I know you have. I _see_ you have," I lied. "You're a fine girl underneath. Don't you remember up there in Glennings Falls how you used to bring Oliver his lunch at noon? He has told me all about it--how nice you were, I mean--and how sure he was that you would learn as soon as you came down here. Well--you're going to begin to-night. Hereafter you'll do exactly as I say." "Go away!" came again from the depths of the down comforter. I ignored it entirely. "Get up now and bathe your eyes," I said cheerfully. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour. I want you to wear the white muslin you had on this morning and no ear-rings. Remember," I added distinctly, going to the door, "remember, absolutely no ear-rings to-night, please." But Oliver and Will and I had dinner alone that evening. "She won't come down," Oliver had announced gloomily. "She's in an awful state. She's crying. She wants to go home," he said, and my heart sank for I knew I had played my last card and lost. That night Will had brought home the long-looked-for good news of a position for Oliver. We discussed it quietly at dinner--the three of us with Madge crying upstairs. A friend of Will's, a civil engineer, had said that if Oliver cared to go down into South America to some God-forsaken spot in the Argentine Republic--no place for a woman, by the way--there was an engineering job down there waiting for somebody. The job would take some five or six months; there might or might not be any future--Will's friend couldn't say. "I'll go. I'll go right off," said Oliver. "Madge is unhappy and wants to go home anyway. I'm sure it's best. It was all a mistake," he admitted sadly to Will, "my taking her away from Glennings Falls. I might have known it wouldn't work." I stared hard at a saltcellar. Will began carving the steak silently. "You can go ahead now and have your people here for Commencement," observed Oliver; "Madge and I will both be gone in a week. I'm relieved it's settled," he added gravely. It was during our dessert, after Delia had taken up a tray to Madge, that I was told that Mrs. Vars wanted me in her bedroom. I excused myself and slipped upstairs quietly. Madge was in bed; her hair was parted, braided neatly down her back; her tears were dried; her plain little nightgown buttoned at her throat. I had never seen her look so pretty. Her dinner stood beside her bed untouched. "You wanted me?" I asked.