He smiled at her passionate threat, as at the words of an emotional child. Underneath his gentleness, his kindness, his loving ways, she felt this trace of scepticism. He did not bother his head with what was beginning to wring her soul. In a few minutes she spoke again: "Miss M'Gann thinks Dr. Leonard knows why I was dismissed. Mrs. Ducharme, she said, had been hanging about the Everglade School district. I remember having seen her several times." Sommers dropped her arm and strode forward. "What did _she_ know?" he asked harshly. "I don't see how she could know anything except suspicions. You know she was queer and a great talker." Sommers's face worked. He was about to speak when Alves went on. "I told Jane we had never been married; she asked me _where_ we were married. I suppose I ought not to have told her. I didn't want to." "It is of no importance," Sommers answered. "It's our own business, anyway; but it makes no difference as we live now whether she knows it or not." "I am glad you feel so," Alves replied with relief. Then in a few moments she added, "I was afraid she might tell people; it might get to your old friends." Sommers replied in the same even tone, "Well? and what can they do about it?" "I wonder what a woman like Miss Hitchcock thinks about such matters,--about us, if she knew." "She would not think. She would avoid the matter as she would a case of drunkenness." The arm within his trembled. She said nothing more until they reached the little portico. She paused there, leaning against one of the crumbling columns, looking out into the night. From the distance beyond the great pier that stretched into the lake came the red glare of the lighthouse. Sommers had gone in and was preparing the room for the night. She could hear him whistle as he walked to and fro, carrying out dishes, arranging the chairs and tables. He maintained an even mood, took the accidents of his fate as calmly as one could, and was always gentle. He had some well of happiness hidden to her. She went in, took off her cloak, and prepared to undress. His clothes, the nicety he preserved about personal matters, had taught her much of him. Her clothes had always been common, of the wholesale world; he had had his luxuries, his refinements, his individual tastes. Gradually, as his more expensive clothes had worn out, he had replaced them with machine-made articles of cheap manufacture. His belongings were like hers now. She was bringing him a little closer to her in such ways,--food and lodging and raiment. But not in thought and being. Behind those deep-set eyes passed a world of thought, of conjecture and theory and belief, that rarely expressed itself outwardly.