He turned impatiently and slapped the horse with the reins. "You seem to have lost your senses," he said sharply. He drove along in silence for a little. Ruth looked at him and his face seemed hard. She thought of how close she and Ted had come, how good he had been, how much it had meant. She could not leave him like this. She must make the effort, must gather herself together and try and make Ted see. "Perhaps, Ted," she began tremulously, "you think I have taken leave of my senses because you haven't tried very hard to understand just what it is I feel." She smiled wanly as she added, "You've been so absorbed in your own disapproval, you know." "Well, how can I be any other way?" he demanded. "Going away like this--for no reason--on a wild goose chase! Isn't Stuart good to you?" he asked abruptly. "Yes, Ted," she answered, as if she were tired of saying it, "Stuart is good enough to me." "I suppose things aren't--just as they used to be," he went on, a little doggedly. "Heavens!--they aren't with anybody! And what will people say?" he broke out with new force. "Think of what people in Freeport will say, Ruth. They'll say the whole thing was a failure, and that it was because you did wrong. They'll say, when the chance finally came, that Stuart didn't want to marry you." He colored but brought it out bluntly. "I suppose they will," agreed Ruth. "And if they knew the truth--or what I know, though heaven knows I'm balled up enough about what the truth really is!--they'd say it just shows again that you are different, not--something wrong," he finished bitterly. She said nothing for a moment. "And is that what you think, Ted?" she asked, choking a little. "I don't understand it, Ruth," he said, less aggressively. "I had thought you would be so glad of the chance to marry. I--" he hesitated but did not pursue that. He had never told her of going to see Mrs. Williams, of the effort he had made for her. "It seemed that now, when your chance came, you ought to show people that you do want to do the right thing. It surprises me a lot, Ruth, that you don't feel that way, and--Oh! I don't get it at all," he concluded abruptly. Tears were very close when, after a little, she answered: "Well, Ted, maybe when you have less of life left you will understand better what it is I feel. Perhaps," she went on in answer to his look inquiry, "when the future has shrunk down to fewer years you'll see it as more important to get from it what you can." They drove for a little time in silence. They had come in sight of the town and she had not won Ted; she was going away without his sympathy. And she was going away alone, more alone this time than she had been twelve years before.