wondered; there had been many lonely wonderings. She came now to a corner where she stopped. She stood looking down that cross street which was shaded by elm trees. That was the corner where she had always turned for Edith's. Yes, that was the way she used to go. She stood looking down the old way. She wanted to go that way now! She went so far as to cross the street, and on that far corner again stood still, hesitating, wanting to go that old way. It came to her that if this other girl--Annie Morris--a girl she could barely remember, was glad to see her back, then surely Edith--_Edith_--would be glad to see her. But after a moment she went slowly on--the other way. She remembered; remembered the one letter she had had from Edith--that letter of a few lines sent in reply to her two letters written from Arizona, trying to make Edith understand. "Ruth"--Edith had written--she knew the few words by heart; "Yes, I received your first letter. I did not reply to it because it did not seem to me there was anything for me to say. And it does not seem to me now that there is anything for me to say." It was signed, "Edith Lawrence Blair." The full signature had seemed even more formal than the cold words. It had hurt more; it seemed actually to be putting in force the decree that everything between her and Edith was at an end. It was never to be Ruth and Edith again. As she walked slowly on now, away from Edith's, she remembered the day she walked across that Arizona plain, looking at Edith's letter a hundred times in the two miles between the little town and their cabin. She had gone into town that day to see the doctor. Stuart had seemed weaker and she was terribly frightened. The doctor did not bring her much comfort; he said she would have to be patient, and hope--probably it would all come right. She felt very desolate that day in the far-away, forlorn little town. When she got Edith's letter she did not dare to open it until she got out from the town. And then she found those few formal, final words--written, it was evident, to keep her from writing any more. The only human thing about it was a little blot under the signature. It was the only thing a bit like Edith; she could see her making it and frowning over it. And she wondered--she had always wondered--if that little blot came there because Edith was not as controlled, as without all feeling, as everything else about her letter would indicate. As she looked back to it now it seemed that that day of getting Edith's letter was the worst day of all the hard years. She had been so lonely--so frightened; when she saw Edith's handwriting it was hard not to burst into tears right there at the little window in the queer general store where they gave out letters as well as everything else. But after she had read the letter there were no tears; there was no feeling of tears. She walked along through that flat, almost unpeopled, half desert country and it seemed that the whole world had shrivelled up.