As a Man Lives by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

I WAS determined to keep my word with Olive Berdenstein with absolute faithfulness. For I nearly a week I stayed in the house except for a short walk in the early morning. Three times Bruce Deville called, and met with the same answer. Often I saw him riding slowly by and scanning the garden and looking up towards the house with an impatient look in his eyes and a dark frown upon his strong face. Once I saw him walking with Olive Berdenstein. She seemed to have caught him up, and have found him in no very pleasant temper. His shoulders were high, and he was walking so quickly that she had almost to run to keep up with him. I looked away with a sigh, and yet--what a heartless hypocrite I was. I found myself thinking with a curious satisfaction that his shoulders had been lower and his face very different when I had walked with him.

After nearly a week of solitude with only Alice's parish talk and mild speculations as to our future at Eastminster to break the intolerable monotony of it, I could bear it no longer. I put on my hat one wet and windy afternoon and went down to the Yellow House. Adelaide Fortress was alone, writing at her desk, and when I entered we looked at one another for a moment without any greeting. It seemed to me that a few more grey hairs had mingled with the black--a little more wanness had crept into the delicate, intellectual face. But she greeted me cheerfully, without any shadow of reproach in her tone, although I knew that my absence had been a trouble to her.