“No,” he assured himself, “she won’t go back on her convictions now. She’s decided what’s right for her to do, and she’ll stick to it like a soldier.” He smiled with pride, but a moment later his thought supplemented, with softened feeling, “It will be hard on her, though!” On the whole, feeling thus sure about Rhoda, he was rather glad to have the young man there, because of the pleasure it would give his wife to mother him and to recall the memories of her youth. In Dr. Ware’s feeling toward his wife there was a strong element of compassion. In serious middle age, considering the past with judicial mind, he doubted not a little if, in that wildly impelling time of youthful passion, it had been quite the fair thing for him to marry her and take her away from all her girlish associations. He knew well enough that she had loved him then and that she still loved him and that their life together had been as calmly happy as imperfect mortals have any right to expect the wedded state to be. But he also felt quite sure that if he had not paid impetuous court to her in those vivid youthful days she would have loved and married some man of her own region and lived her life surrounded by the conditions and the people with whom she was most in sympathy. His conviction that she would have been happier in such estate inspired him with a very great tenderness toward her, and with a half-realized wish to make atonement, in such little ways as became possible, for what she had missed. She had been loyal to him through all these years, and from the start had refused to go back to her old home for even a short visit, because the invitations from her family had never included him. That one stay at Fairmount, with Jeff Delavan’s mother, had been the only return to the old life which she had ever allowed herself. So now he was pleased when he foresaw how much comfort she would find in having “Adeline’s boy” under her roof and needing her ministrations. But Mrs. Ware had still another reason to be pleased that Jeff Delavan was to be a member of their household for several days and under such conditions. She warmly hoped and therefore almost believed that Rhoda’s determination would go down under the persuasive influence of daily association with her lover. The girl was a good nurse. She had considerable knowledge, acquired from her father, of what ought to be done in a sick-room and she was one of those people with a native knack for making an invalid comfortable. Therefore, Mrs. Ware argued, it would be her duty to take main charge of their bedridden guest, and Rhoda would do it if she could be made to see that it was her duty. There was nothing so sure to soften a girl’s heart, she told herself, as seeing a strong man dependent upon her care. And this combined with Jeff’s masterful love-making and the pleadings of her own heart--could there be a better combination? Truly, it was almost providential, Jeff’s being upon that boat.