After their marriage the Williams' were leaders of the young married set. Their house was the gayest place in town; Stuart Williams had the same talent in hospitality that he had for business--growing, perhaps, out of the same qualities. He was very generally and really deeply liked; they called him a good fellow, a lovable chap. For about four years people spoke of it as a successful marriage, though there were no children. And then, just what it was no one knew, but the Williams' began to seem different, going to their house became a different thing. The people who knew Marion best had a feeling that she was not the same after the visit of that gay little Southern matron whom she had known in school at Washington. It was very gay at the Williams' through that visit, and then Marion said she was tired out and they were going to draw in for a little, and somehow they just never seemed to emerge from that drawing in. Her friends wondered; they talked about how Stuart and this friend of Marion's had certainly hit it off wonderfully; some of them suspected, but Marion gave no confidences. She seemed to carry her head higher than ever; in fact, in some curious way she seemed to become Marion Averley again while Stuart Williams concentrated more and more upon the various business affairs he was being drawn into. It came about that the Williams' were less and less mentioned when the subject of happy marriages was up, and when time had swung Ruth Holland and Edith Lawrence into the social life of the town it was the analytical rather than the romantically minded citizens who were talking about them. Perhaps life would have been quite another thing for a number of people if the Country Club had not decided to replenish its treasury by giving a play. Mrs. Lawrence was chairman of the entertainment committee. That naturally brought Edith and Ruth into the play, and one night after one of those periods of distraction into which the organizer of amateur theatricals is swept it was Mrs. Lawrence who exclaimed, "Stuart Williams! Why couldn't he do that part?"--and Stuart Williams, upon learning who was in the cast, said he would see what he could do with it. Again, at the close of the first rehearsal, as they stood about in the hall at the Lawrences', laughing over mishaps, it was Mrs. Lawrence who said, "You and Ruth go the same way, don't you, Stuart?" Tonight they were going that way after the final rehearsal. It was later than usual; they went slowly, saying little. They had fallen silent as they neared Ruth's home; they walked slowly and in silence outside the fence; paused an instant at the gate, then, very slowly, started up the walk which led to the big white square house and came to a stop beneath the oak tree which was so near the house that its branches brushed the upper window panes.