But Howard Benton never called again. Instead, he took to spending his evenings with his mother, going over advertisements, writing answers to which, because of his lack of experience, there were few replies. How terribly had he wasted the years at college—years that could not now help him earn a living! It was when it actually became a question of food that he determined to take whatever might be offered. Months had passed, and he had kept his promise to his mother, but they had gone through hardships together, and there were times when the price of a meal had been difficult to earn. In the end, his earnestness won him a position in the office of a large manufacturing concern. The salary was not large, but to Marjorie, and to her son, the youth who had once squandered double the amount in a single evening, but who had come to know what it meant to walk about for days trying to earn enough to keep a shelter above their heads, it seemed a small fortune. And so two years had passed. As soon as possible they had moved into a new home, a little four-room flat in Harlem. It was cozy and comfortable, a sitting and dining room combined, two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen. Marjorie did all of the work, even to their washing. At first, Howard objected to this. She seemed so frail, he was sure that she could never stand it; but when she assured him that she never felt better in all her life, that the work was like play, and gave her something with which to occupy herself while he was at work, he agreed to let her do as she pleased. He left at seven-thirty every morning to go to his work, and at six he returned, always to find a hot, tempting dinner waiting for him. At noon, when he opened his lunch-box, some new delicacy or dainty invariably met his eye. How could he possibly know that Marjorie went without her own lunch many a day in order to provide these little luxuries for him? How was he to know that when evening after evening she greeted him at the door with a smile, she had dragged herself about all day doing her work, cooking his dinner, mending his clothes, without uttering a word of complaint, while she suffered the most excruciating pain? It had begun about a year ago, while they were enduring so many hardships, a sharp, stinging sensation, somewhere in the region of her heart, that at times almost drove her insane. Apparently they were both quite happy. They never referred to the past. Their lives seemed to date from the day when they left Hugh Benton’s house together. Howard could not know that at times Marjorie lay awake all night wondering about Elinor and Hugh. She had never heard a word from Elinor since the day she said good-by to her over the telephone, and of Hugh, she had heard but twice, and that was through the society columns of the paper.