He continued his reassuring talk to the woman whose husband was ill, but he was at the same time thinking of Ruth's eager questionings about Edith, about Edith's children, her hunger for every smallest thing he could tell her. When he went down to his car Edith, looking up and seeing him, gayly waved her hand. He returned the salute and stood there as if doing something to the car. Sitting there in the morning sunshine with her two children Edith looked the very picture of the woman for whom things had gone happily. Life had opened its pleasantest ways to Edith. He could not bring himself to get in his car and start away; he could not get rid of the thought of what it would mean to Ruth if Edith would go to see her, could not banish the picture of Ruth's face if Edith were to walk into the room. And because he could not banish it he suddenly turned abruptly from his car and started across the street and up the steps to the porch. She smiled brightly up at him, holding out her hand. "Coming up to talk to me? How nice!" He pulled up a chair, bantering with the children. "I know what you've come for," Edith laughed gayly. "You've come to hear about how lovely Amy was at the tea yesterday. You want to know all the nice things people are saying about her." His face puckered as it did when he was perplexed or annoyed. He laughed with a little constraint as he said: "That would be pleasant hearing, I admit. But it was something else I wanted to talk to you about just now, Edith." She raised her brows a little in inquiry, bending forward slightly, waiting, her eyes touched with the anticipation of something serious. He felt sure his tone had suggested Ruth to her; that indicated to him that Ruth had been much in her mind. "I had a long visit with Ruth last night," he began quietly. She did not speak, bending forward a little more, her eyes upon him intently, anxiously. "Edith?" "Yes, Deane?" He paused, then asked simply: "Edith, Ruth is very lonely. Won't you go to see her?" She raised her chin in quick, startled way, some emotion, he did not know just what, breaking over her face. "I thought I'd come and tell you, Edith, how lonely--how utterly lonely--Ruth is, because I felt if you understood you would want to go and see her." Still Edith did not speak. She looked as though she were going to cry. "Ruth's had a hard time, Edith. It's been no light life for her--you don't have to do more than look in her eyes to know that. I wish you could have heard the way she asked about you--poured out questions about you. She loves you just as she always did, Edith. She's sorrowed for you all through these years." A tear brimmed over from Edith's blue eyes and rolled slowly--unheeded--down her cheek. His heart warmed to her and he took hope as he watched that tear.