"It is easier to understand than you think," she said. "You are up here, she is there. You are a new man with new ideas, new possibilities, new hopes; she is the same sweet, innocent country girl, no farther advanced than she was the day you left her. You have gone forward, she stands still. You are Dudley Sherrod, the most promising of young artists, with popularity ready to leap at you; she is the common lass of the fields, honest and true, unknown except to the people who live nearby. You are up here, thrown with bright men, and perhaps with clever women, while she is back there with the farmers and the farmers' wives. You have every opportunity to be somebody; she will always be nobody unless she is lifted from that mire of inactivity. Don't you see how well I understand the situation? You have every advantage, she has none. Yes, Mr. Sherrod, you are living out the promise I made for you months ago, and you are winning only what is yours by right. But you must not forget that there are few such jewels here as the one you left behind when you sought treasures in the world." "That's the neatest lecture I ever heard, Celeste," cried Converse, admiringly. "You musn't forget to go back and polish up the jewel, Sherrod. That's what she means, in few words." Jud feared that both were laughing at him and resented it. "I am sure Miss Wood has said nothing that is untrue concerning Justine Van. She is the noblest girl I ever knew," he said, deliberately. "She is far above me in every way. She has more reason to stoop to me than I to her. She is my best friend." "Friend?" echoed Miss Wood. "My truest comrade," said he. The perspiration started on his forehead. CHAPTER XV. ONE HEART FOR TWO. The passing of two months saw Sherrod a constant, even a privileged, visitor at the Wood home. In that time he visited the cottage in Indiana but once, and on that occasion glowingly related to Justine the story of his first visit to the goddess and of her subsequent interest in his affairs. Just now he was beginning to realize the consequences of his deception. Affairs had reached the stage where it seemed next to impossible to acknowledge his marriage to Justine, and he certainly could not tell that honest, trusting wife of his unfortunate duplicity. He loved her too deeply to inflict the wound that such a confession would make, and yet he could see that delay would only increase the violence of the shock should she learn of his mistake, innocently conceived, but unwisely fostered.