He went home deviously by way of Montgomery Street. The early shoots had lanced their way into the sunshine of the Pritchard garden, and Miss Letitia was making her rounds, inspecting for the winter-killed amongst the tenderer of her shrubbery. Jeremy leaned upon the fence saying nothing. There were reasons why he felt hesitant about approaching Miss Pritchard. In his campaign against the tax-dodgers he had fallen foul of old Madam Taylor, one of her particular friends. Shortly after the publication, Miss Pritchard, meeting Jeremy at her own front gate as he was about to enter, had presented the danger signal of two high-colored spots upon the cheek-curves, and a pair of specially bright eyes; also the theorem, for his acceptance, that a newspaper ought to be in better business than attacking and abusing lone and defenseless women. Declining to accept this theorem without debate, Jeremy was informed that Miss Pritchard would disdain thenceforth to harbor The Guardian upon her premises. Interpreting this to mean that the editor of that fallen sheet would be equally unwelcome, the caller had departed, divided between wrath and melancholy. Up to that time the Pritchard house had been one of the few ports of call in his busy but rather lonely life. Now, another of those gossamer links with Marcia Ames was severed. Miss Pritchard soon came to regret her severity, too; for the steadfast, unspoken, hopeless devotion of the boy--he was still only that to her--to the memory of her golden girl, had bloomed for her like one of the flowers in her old maid’s garden. Now, seeing the lover, forlorn and mute, outside what was once his paradise, she gave way to compunction. But not wholly. There was a sting in her first words. “Are you reckoning up taxes on my place, Mr. Jeremy?” “That’s been done long ago,” he said uncompromisingly. “When are you going to print it?” “As soon as you try to dodge ’em.” He looked very tired, and his voice had lost something of the buoyant quality of youth which she had always associated with him. A different note crept into her own when she spoke again. “I had a long letter from Marcia to-day.” “Is she well?” The tone was politely formal, but she saw the color rise in his face and marked the pathetic eagerness in his eyes. “She’s the same Marcia Ames. Even to the name.” He caught at the opportunity. “She’s not married yet?” “No. Her fiancé is fighting. Somewhere in the remote colonies, I believe.” “Fiancé?” “Surely you knew that she was engaged; a young cousin of her stepfather’s. It was an affair of years.” “Not when she was here,” Jeremy blurted. Her surprised regard challenged him. “You seem very certain,” she observed. Jeremy recovered himself. “I had heard rumors, but nothing formal,” he said. “I thought perhaps you would have told me when it was announced.” “I assumed that you knew.”