independence. Moreover he has too many children."

"Did he tell you this?" the girl asked.

"Mrs. Churchley told me. She has gone abroad for a year."

"And she didn't tell you what I said to her?"

Godfrey showed an impatience. "Why should I take this trouble if she
had?"

"You might have taken it to make me suffer," said Adela. "That
appears to be what you want to do."

"No, I leave that to you--it's the good turn you've done me!" cried
the young man with hot tears in his eyes.

She stared, aghast with the perception that there was some dreadful
thing she didn't know; but he walked on, dropping the question
angrily and turning his back to her as if he couldn't trust himself.
She read his disgust in his averted, face, in the way he squared his
shoulders and smote the ground with his stick, and she hurried after
him and presently overtook him. She kept by him for a moment in
silence; then she broke out: "What do you mean? What in the world
have I done to you?"

"She would have helped me. She was all ready to help me," Godfrey
portentously said.

"Helped you in what?" She wondered what he meant; if he had made