Miss Munroe nodded. “Jack doesn’t seem like himself at all,” she said, “since this heat began. And Dorothy has lost all her spirits.” That night at dinner Helen sat alone with her husband. Guy Fullerton was dining out. For a long time neither spoke. They were becoming used to silence. “I’ve just had a letter from Fanny,” Helen said. “She seems very lonely at Ashburnham; but I’m glad she has escaped this dreadful heat.” “That reminds me,” Briggs remarked. “I think you’d better not wait till next month before you go up to Waverly. The children will be far better off up there. This heat may continue all through the month. Can’t you get away by Saturday?” He did not notice that she turned pale. “I suppose we could,” she replied. “I shall close up the house,” he continued, “and take rooms with Guy at the club. If I can manage it I’ll go up to Waverly with you for over Sunday. To-morrow I’ll send Michael there to open the house and get things ready. His wife had better go with him, too,” he added, as an afterthought. “There’ll be no need of going to all that expense,” said Helen, flushing. Then she went on, quickly: “Miss Munroe and I can open the house, and we can get Mary Watson’s daughter to help us.” “No,” said Briggs, decisively. “I want the place to be aired and put in shape before you get there. You’re too tired to look after those things, anyway, and Miss Munroe has all she can do to take care of the children.” Helen rose from the table, and her husband followed her out of the room. “I must go right back to the House,” he said. “We shall probably have a long session to-night; so I sha’n’t be home till late. You needn’t have anyone wait up for me.” Their partings after dinner had lately become very difficult, involving unnecessary and uncomfortable explanations. Helen had either to attend to some trifling domestic detail or to hurry upstairs to the nursery, and Briggs was absorbed in work that called him to his study or out of the house. They talked a good deal now about matters that did not relate to themselves. Sometimes it was hard to find a topic. They were in that most miserable of human situations where, loving each other, they were able only to cause each other pain. Briggs found relief in his work; Helen devoted more time to the children. She began to wonder if she had not neglected them, if she had not left them too much to their governess. It seemed to her, at times, that they cared as much for Miss Munroe as for herself. Of course, Miss Munroe was in many ways valuable, but she was provincial and narrow-minded and she petted the children too much and gave them sentimental and foolish notions. Helen dreaded seeming ungrateful, but she suspected that the children had outgrown their governess.