He looked up into her eyes, bent to kiss her hand, and after he had picked up his cane and his hat from the rack, toddled down the walk to the street, a sad, thoughtful, worried little man, white-clad and serene to outward view, who had not even a whistle nor a vagrant tune under his breath to console him. That day, after her father's insistence, Laura Van Dorn changed from the night watch to the day nurse, and from that day on for ten days, she ministered to Grant Adams' wants. Mechanically she read to him from such books as the house afforded--Tolstoi--Ibsen, Hardy, Howells,--but she was shut away from the meaning of what she read and even from the comments of the man under her care, by the consideration of her own problems. For to Laura Van Dorn it was a time of anxious doubt, of sad retrogression, of inner anguish. In some of the books were passages she had marked and read to her husband; and such pages calling up his dull comprehension of their beauty, or bringing back his scoffing words, or touching to the quick a hurt place in her heart, taxed her nerves heavily. But during the time while she sat by the injured man's bedside, she was glad in her heart of one thing--that she had an excuse for avoiding the people who called. As Grant grew stronger--as it became evident that he must go soon, the woman's heart shrank from meeting the town, and she clung to each duty of the man's convalescence hungrily. She knew she must face life, that she must have some word for her friends about her tragedy. She felt that in going away, in suing for the divorce himself, her husband had made the break irrevocable. There was no resentment nor malice toward him in her heart. Yet the future seemed hopelessly black and terrible to her. The afternoon before Grant Adams was to leave the Nesbit home he was allowed to come down stairs, and he sat with her upon the side porch, all screened and protected by vines that led to her father's office. Laura's finger was in a book they had been reading--it was "The Pillars of Society." The day was one of those exquisite days in mid-June, and after a cooling rain the air was clear and seemed to put joy into one's veins. "How modern he is--how American--how like Harvey," said the young man. "Ibsen might have lived right here in this town, and written that," he added. He started to raise his right arm, but a twinge of pain reminded him that the stump was bound, so he raised his left and cried: "And I tell you, Laura--that's what I'm on earth to fight--the whole infernal system of pocket-picking and poor-robbing, and public gouging that we permit under the profit system." The woman's thoughts were upon her own sorrow, but she called herself back to smile and reply: "All right, Grant--I'm with you. We may have to draft father and commandeer George Brotherton, and start out as a pirate crew--but I'm with you."