"No, Francis! It isn't made right yet. You would be different if it were. Somehow, from the beginning, when first there was talk of this school, it has all been wrong. I hate it! I hate it! And the trouble goes back of that, too. It starts from the very beginning, when we were married, and began to live together. We have always done as the others do all around us, and it is all wrong. I see it now. We can never go on again in the same way--" "What way? I don't understand you in the least," he interrupted. "Why, just earning and spending money, trying to get more and more, trying to get things. It's spoiled your work; it's spoiled you; and I have been blind and weak to let us drift on like the others, getting and spending, struggling to get ahead, until it has come to this, to this,--something dreadful that you will not tell me,--something base that you have done to make money. Oh, how low and mean it is! How mean it makes men and women!" "That's life," he retorted neatly. "No, no, never! That wasn't what you and I thought before we married. I wish you were a clerk, a laborer, a farm-hand,--anything, so that we could be honest, and think of something besides making money. Let us begin again, from the very beginning, and live like the common people from day to day--live for your work, for the thing you do. Then we should be happy. Never this way, not if you make millions, millions!" "Well, I can't see why you are set on going away," the architect answered, content to see her mind turn from the practical question. "Tell me!" she exclaimed passionately. "Tell me! Is it all right with that building? With that contractor? Are you honest? Are you an honest man? Tell me, and I will believe you." "I have said all that I am going to say about that matter," he answered stubbornly. "Then, Francis, I go!" The next afternoon the architect met his family at the train and saw them start, punctiliously doing all the little things that he could to make their journey comfortable. He referred to their going as a short vacation trip, and joked with the boys about the farm. Just before the train started, while Mrs. Spellman settled the children in their section, Helen walked up and down the platform with him. As the signal for starting was given she raised her veil, revealing the tears in her eyes, and leaning toward him kissed him. She put into his hands a little card, which she had been holding clasped in her palm. He raised his hat and stood on the platform until the long train had pulled out of the shed. Then he glanced at the card in his hand, which read:-- "I shall wait for you to come to me when you really want me. H." He crushed the card in his fist and threw it into the roadbed. PART III INTO THE RANKS CHAPTER XXIV