“It—it—must come,” she faltered. She thought of them as fools, but had been sorry to see them go. Wood's favourite sitting-room, and her image was so intimately associated with it, neither the carpenter nor his daughter could muster courage to enter it before. The burden of decision had been transferred. " "No; another still more extraordinary. ‘Your wife?’ ‘My wife,’ he repeated, rising also, his smile mocking her. She approached Ruth with open arms; and something in the way the child came into that kindly embrace hurt the older woman to the point of tears. And experience was slow in coming.