'Ah, you are but half reclaimed! You are a living instance that
there is no content unless one has begun life as a fungus.'

She was startled by his change of tone. 'True, Ethel. Content might
have been won, if there had been resolution to begin without it.'

'I beg your pardon,' she faltered, 'I ought not to have said it. I
forgot there was such a cause.'

'Cause--you know nothing about it.'

She was silent, distressed, dismayed, fearing that she had spoken
wrongly, and had either mistaken or been misunderstood.

'Tell me, Ethel,' he presently said, 'what can you know of what made
me a wanderer?'

'Only what papa told me.'

'He--he was the last person to know.'

'He told me,' said Ethel, hurrying it out in a fright, 'that you went
away--out of generosity--not to interfere with his happiness.'

Then she felt as if she had done a shocking thing, and waited
anxiously, while Dr. Spencer deliberately made a deep hole in the
shingle with his stick. 'Well,' at last he said, 'I thought that
matter was unknown to all men--above all to Dick!'

'It was only after you were gone, that he put things together and