There followed three years of happiness wrung from wretchedness, years in which the splendor of love would blaze through the shame of concealment, when joy was always breaking out through fear, when moments of beautiful peace trembled there in the ugly web of circumstance. Life was flooded with beauty by a thing called shameful.

Her affairs as a girl went on just the same; the life on the surface did not change. She continued as Ruth Holland—the girl who went to parties with the boys of her own set, one of her particular little circle of girls, the chum of Edith Lawrence, the girl Deane Franklin liked best. But a life grew underneath that—all the time growing, crowding. She appeared to remain a girl after passion had swept her over into womanhood. To be living through the most determining, most intensifying experience of life while she appeared only to be resting upon the surface was the harassing thing she went through in those years before reality came crashing through pretence and disgrace brought relief.

She talked to but one person in those years. That was Deane. The night he told her that he loved her she let him see.

That was more than a year after the night Stuart Williams took her home from that last rehearsal; Deane was through school now and had come home to practice medicine. She had felt all along that once he was at home for good she might have to tell Deane; not alone because he would interfere with her meetings with Stuart, but because it seemed she could not bear the further strain of pretending with him. And somehow she would particularly hate pretending with Deane. Though the night she did let him see it was not that there was any determination for doing so, but because things had become too tense that night and she had no power to go on dissembling.

It began in irritation at him, the vicious irritation that springs out against the person who upsets a plan he knows nothing about, and cannot be told of.

She had come in from an errand down town and was about to dress hurriedly to go over to Edith's for dinner. She was going to make some excuse for getting away from there early and would have an hour with Stuart, one of those stolen hours that often crowded, agitated, a number of the hours before it, one of those hours of happiness when fear always stood right there, but when joy had a marvellous power to glow in an atmosphere of ugly things. A few nights before she had tried to arrange one of those times, and just as she was about to leave the house, saying some vague thing about running in somewhere—there was no strict surveillance on members of the Holland household—a friend who had been very ill and was just beginning to go about had come to see her and she had been obliged to sit there through the hour she had been living for, striving to crowd down what she was feeling and appear delighted that her friend was able to be about, chatting lightly of inconsequential things while she could think of nothing but Stuart waiting for her, had had to smile while she wanted to sob in the fury of disappointed passion.

The year had brought many disappointments like that, disappointments which found their way farther into the spirit because they dared not show on the surface. Of late there had been so many of them that it was growing hard to hold from her manner her inner chafing against them. There were times when all the people who loved her seemed trying to throw things in her way, and it was the more maddening because blindly done. It was hurting her relations with people; she hated them when they blunderingly stepped in the way of the thing that had come to mean everything to her.

She was particularly anxious about this night for Stuart was going out of town on a business trip and she would not see him again for more than a week. It was her grandfather who made the first difficulty; as she was going up the stairs he called, "You going over to the Lawrences' tonight, Ruth?"

When she had answered yes he continued: "It wouldn't be much out of your way, would it, to run on over to the Allens'?"

She hesitated; anything her grandfather asked of her was hard to refuse, not only because she loved him and because he was old, but because it hurt her to see how he missed the visiting around among his old friends that his rheumatism had of late cut him off from.

"Why—no," she answered, wondering just how she could get it in, for it did take her out of her way, and old Mr. Allen would want to talk to her; it was going to be hard to get away from Edith's anyway, and the time would be so short, for Stuart would have to leave for his train at half past nine. She quickly decided that she would go over there before dinner, even though it made her a little late. Maybe she didn't need to comb her hair, after all.

She was starting up the stairs when her grandfather called: "Wait a minute. Come here, Ruth."

She came back, twirling the fingers of one hand nervously. Her grandfather was fumbling in the drawer of his secretary. "I want you to take this letter—tell him I got it yesterday—" He stopped, peering at the letter; Ruth stood there with hand clenched now, foot tapping. "Why no, that's not the one," he rambled on; "I must have put it up above here. Or could it—"

"Oh, I'm in a hurry, grandfather!" cried the girl.

He closed the drawer and limped over to his chair. "Just let it go, then," he said in the hurt voice of one who has been refused a thing he cannot do for himself.

"Now, grandfather!" Ruth cried, swiftly moving toward him. "How can you be so silly—just because I'm a little nervous about being late!"

"Seems to me you're always a little nervous about something lately," he remarked, rising and resuming the leisurely search for the letter. "You young folks make such hard work of your good times nowadays. Anybody'd think you had the world on your shoulders."

Ruth made no reply, standing there as quietly as she could, waiting while her grandfather scanned a letter. "Yes, this is the one," he finally said. "You tell him—" She had the letter and was starting for the stairs while listening to what she was to tell, considering at the same time how she'd take the short cut across the high-school ball park—she could make it all right by half past six. Feeling kindly toward her grandfather because it was going to be all right, after all, she called back brightly: "Yes, grandfather, I'll get it to him; I'll run right over there with it first thing."

"Oh, look here, Ruth!" he cried, hobbling out to the hall. "Don't do that! I want you to go in the evening. He'll not be home till eight o'clock. He's going—"

"Yes, grandfather," she called from the head of the stairs in a peculiarly quiet voice. "I see. It's all right."

Then she could not find the things she wanted to put on. There was a button off her dress and her thread broke in sewing it. She was holding herself very tight when her mother came leisurely into the room and stood there commenting on the way Ruth's hair was done, on the untidiness of her dressing-table, mildly reproving her for a growing carelessness. Then she wandered along about something Ruth was to tell Edith's mother. Ruth, her trembling fingers tangling her thread, was thinking that she was always to tell somebody something somebody else had said, take something from one person to another. The way people were all held together in trivial things, that thin, seemingly purposeless web lightly holding them together was eternally throwing threads around her, keeping her from the one thing that counted.

"There!" escaped from her at last, breaking the thread and throwing the dress over her head. Her mother sauntered over to fasten it for her, pausing to note how the dress was wearing out, speaking of the new one Ruth must have soon, and who should make it. "Oh, I'm in a hurry, mother!" Ruth finally cried when her mother stopped to consider how the dress would have had more style if, instead of buttoning down the back, it had fastened under that fold.

"Really, my dear," Mrs. Holland remonstrated, jerking the dress straight with a touch of vexation, "I must say that you are getting positively peevish!"

As Ruth did not reply, and the mother could feel her body tightening, she went on, with a loving little pat as she fastened the dress over the hip, "And you used to be the most sweet-tempered girl ever lived."

Still Ruth made no answer. "Your father was saying the other night that he was sure you couldn't be feeling well. You never used to be a bit irritable, he said, and you nearly snapped his head off when he wanted—just to save you—to drive you over to Harriett's."

Though the dress was all fastened now, Ruth did not turn toward her mother. Mrs. Holland added gently: "Now that wasn't reasonable, was it?"

The tear Ruth had been trying to hold back fell to the handkerchief she was selecting. No, it wouldn't seem reasonable, of course; her father had wanted to help her, and she had been cross. It was all because she couldn't tell him the truth—which was that she hadn't told him the truth, that she wasn't going to Harriett's for an hour, that she was going to do something else first. There had been a moment of actually hating her father when, in wanting to help her, he stepped in the way of a thing he knew nothing about. That, it seemed, was what happened between people when things could not be told.

Mrs. Holland, seeing that Ruth's hand was unsteady, went on, in a voice meant to soothe: "Just take it a little easier, dear. What under the sun have you got to do but enjoy yourself? Don't get in such a flutter about it." She sighed and murmured, from the far ground of experience: "Wait till you have a real worry."

Ruth was pinning on her hat. She laughed in a jerky little way and said, in a light voice that was slightly tremulous: "I did get a little fussed, didn't I? But you see I wanted to get over to Edith's before dinner time. She wants to talk to me about her shower for Cora Albright."

"But you have all evening to talk that over, haven't you?" calmly admonished Mrs. Holland.

"Why, of course," Ruth answered, a little crisply, starting for the door.

"Your petticoat's showing," her mother called to her. "Here, I'll pin it up for you."

"Oh, let it go!" cried Ruth desperately. "I'll fix it at Edith's," she added hurriedly.

"Ruth, are you crazy?" her mother demanded. "Going through the streets with your petticoat showing! I guess you're in no such hurry as that."

It was while she was pinning up the skirt that Mrs. Holland remarked: "Oh, I very nearly forgot to tell you; Deane's going over there for you tonight."

Then to the mother's utter bewilderment and consternation Ruth covered her face with her hands and burst into sobs.

"Why, my dear," she murmured; "why, Ruth dear, what is the matter?"

Ruth sank down on the bed, leaning her head against the foot of it, shaking with sobs. Her mother stood over her murmuring, "Why, my dear, what is the matter?"

Ruth, trying to stop crying, began to laugh. "I didn't know he was coming! I was so surprised. We've quarrelled!" she gulped out desperately.

"Why, he was just as natural and nice as could be over the 'phone," said Mrs. Holland, pouring some water in the bowl that Ruth might bathe her eyes. "Really, my dear, it seems to me you make too much of things. He wanted to come here, and when I told him you were going to be at Edith's, he said he'd go there. I'm sure he was just as nice as could be."

Ruth was bathing her eyes, her body still quivering a little. "Yes, I know," she spluttered, her face in the water; "he is that way when—after we've quarrelled."

"I didn't know you and Deane ever did quarrel," ventured Mrs. Holland. "When you do, I'll warrant it's your fault." She added, significantly: "Deane's mighty good to you, Ruth." She had said several things like that of late.

"Oh, he's good enough," murmured Ruth from the folds of the towel.

"Now, powder up a little, dear. There! And now just take it a little easy. Why, it's not a hit like you to be so——touchy."

She followed Ruth downstairs. "Got that letter?" the grandfather called out from his room.

"I'll send Ted with it, father," Mrs. Holland said hastily, seeing Ruth's face.

A sudden surge of love for her mother almost swept away Ruth's self-command. It was wonderful that some one wanted to help her. It made her want to cry.

Her mother went with her to the porch. "You look so nice," she said soothingly. "Have a good time, dearie."

Ruth waved her hand without turning her face to her mother.

Tears were right there close all through that evening. The strain within was so great—(what was she going to do about Deane?)—that there was that impulse to cry at the slightest friendliness. She was flushed and tired when she reached Edith's, and Mrs. Lawrence herself went out and got her a glass of water—a fan, drew up a comfortable chair. The whole house seemed so kindly, so favoring. Contrasted with her secret turmoil the reposefulness, friendliness of the place was so beautiful to her that taut emotions were ready to give. Yet all the while there was that inner distress about how to get away, what to say. The affectionate kindness of her friends, the appeal of their well-ordered lives as something in which to rest, simply had no reach into the thing that dominated her.

And now finally she had managed it; Deane had come before she could possibly get away but she had said she would have to go up to Harriett's, that she must not be too late about it. Edith had protested, disappointed at her leaving so early, wanting to know if she couldn't come back. That waved down, there had been a moment of fearing Edith was going to propose going with her; so she had quickly spoken of there being something Harriett wanted to talk to her about. She had a warm, gentle feeling for Edith when finally she saw the way clearing. That was the way it was, gratitude to one who had moved out of her way gave her so warm a feeling that often she would impulsively propose things letting her in for future complications.

As she was saying goodnight there was another moment of wanting terribly to cry. They were so good to her, so loving—and what would they think if they knew? Her voice was curiously gentle in taking leave of them; there was pain in that feeling of something that removed her from these friends who cared for her, who were so good to her.

She asked Deane if he hadn't something else to do for an hour, someone to run in and see while she visited with Harriett. When he readily fell in with that, saying he hadn't been to the Bennetts' since coming home and that it would be a good time to go there, she grew suddenly gay, joking with him in a half tender little way, a sort of affectionate bantering that was the closest they came to intimacy.

And then at the very last, after one thing and then another had been disposed of, and just as her whole being was fairly singing with relief and anticipation, the whole thing was threatened and there was another of those moments of actually hating one who was dear to her.

They had about reached the corner near Harriett's where she was going to insist Deane leave her for the Bennetts' when they came upon her brother Ted, slouching along, whistling, flipping in his hand the letter he was taking to his grandfather's old friend.

"Hello," he said, "where y' goin'?"

"Just walking," said Ruth, and able to say it with a carelessness that surprised her.

"Oh," said Ted, with a nonchalance that made her want to scream out some awful thing at him, "thought maybe you were making for Harriett's. She ain't home."

She would like to have pushed him away! She would have liked to push him way off somewhere! She dug her nails down into her palm; she could hardly control the violent, ugly feeling that wanted to leap out at him—at this "kid brother" whom she adored. Why need he have said just that?—that particular thing, of all things! But she was saying in calm elderly sister fashion, "Don't lose that letter, Ted," and to Deane, as they walked on, "Harriett's at a neighbor's; I'll run in for her; she's expecting me to."

But it left her weak; her legs were trembling, her heart pounding; there seemed no power left at the center of her for holding herself in one.

And now she was rid of Deane! She had shaken them all off; for that little time she was free! She hurried toward the narrow street that trailed off into the country. Stuart would be waiting for her there. Her joy in that, her eagerness, rushed past the dangers all around her, the thing that possessed her avoiding thought of the disastrous possibilities around her as a man in a boat on a narrow rushing river would keep clear of rocks jutting out on either side. Sometimes the feeling that swept her on did graze the risks so close about her and she shivered a little. Suppose Harriett were at the Bennetts' when Deane got there! Suppose Deane said something when they got home; suppose Ted said something that wouldn't fit in with what Deane said; suppose Deane got to Harriett's too soon—though she had told him not to be there till after half past nine. Hadn't Deane looked queer at the last? Wouldn't he suspect? Wouldn't everybody suspect, with her acting like this? And once there was the slightest suspecting....

But she was hurrying on; none of those worries, fears, had power to lay any real hold on the thing that possessed her; faster and faster she hurried; she had turned into the little street, had passed the last house, turned the bend in the road, and yes! there was Stuart, waiting for her, coming to her. Everything else fell away. Nothing else in the world mattered.