Joe avoided Jean. His days were spent underground, and in the summer evenings when he might have seen her with little trouble, he shunned walks they had known of old together. He heard that she had sold the little cottage that had been her only inheritance from her grandfather, and he knew that this meant the severing of her last tie with the town. The community, rejoicing in her success, whispered the fabulous terms of her professional engagements. Jean, with her trunk packed, had yet to see him before leaving the valley, and he appeared at the cottage by a characteristic inadvertence, leaning upon the gate as she closed the door for the last time. “Everybody’s sorry you’re goin’, Jean; but I guess you got to pull out. You’ve outgrown the town and it’s you for the large cities now.” “I have to go where my work is. I’m going to share another woman’s studio in New York this fall. I’m going first to visit Mrs. Blair in Maine.” “Sure! York’s the place. The Blairs always go there,” Joe replied, proud of his inner knowledge of the Craighills and their ways. “Walsh and Whiskers blew in yesterday and took my boss to Pittsburg. He said he’d be back in a day or two. He’s the busy little worker when he gets started.” They stood with a new restraint upon them at the gate that had known their childhood and youth. Joe saw that his reference to Wayne had not been fortunate, and he twisted his cap nervously. “He’s come round all right, Jean. He’s pretty safe from the drink now. He’s worked it off.” “He can do anything he tries. And you’ve done a great deal to help him. You wouldn’t have come back to the mines if you hadn’t thought he needed you.” “Oh, pshaw! Jean. But I guess I was stuck on him, all right, or I wouldn’t have come back. I guess you know why he came here--it was for you. And the goin’ to work--I guessed you did that, too. It listens like you, Jean. And now he’s made over--and you made him. I want you to be good to him.” “He’s my friend and yours--that’s all, Joe,” she said firmly. “I may not be in Denbeigh for a good while but I want to tell you before I go that I’m still ready to come back to you. If you’ll give me another chance I’ll do my best. I mean it, Joe, with all my heart.” “I wish you’d stop thinking about that business. It ain’t no use, Jean. And now you got a big chance and I’d only be in the way. You don’t want to come back--not honest in your heart you don’t; you just think it’s right; and Father Jim told you you oughtn’t to have left me--that the divorce was a sin. But you’re free--and I’m not holding you.” “If you want to come any time you can always find out where I am,” she said. “I shall always be ready.”