Above all, use your will. We are neither of us
weaklings, and it could be a thousand times worse. Nothing shall take
from us what we have, and there may be a way out."
"There is none," she said sadly. "But I will do as you tell me. And
I'll forget--not remember--if I can."
XXII
The end came swiftly. The next day Ben Travers drove down to
Rincona. Mrs. Abbott listened to his garnished tale with bulging eyes
and her three chins quivering with excitement. She had heard no
gossip worth mentioning since she left town, and privately she hated
the summer and Alta.
"You should have seen her face when she came out of that church,"
cried Travers for the third time; he was falling into the senile
habit of repeating himself. "It was fairly distorted and she looked
as if she had been crying for a week. Mark my words, Masters had been
making the hottest kind of love to her--he was little more composed
than she. Bet you an eagle to a dime they elope within a week."
"Serve Howard Talbot right for marrying a woman twenty years younger
than himself and a Northerner to boot. Do you think he suspects?"
"Not he. Now, I must be off. If I didn't call on the Hathaways and
Montgomerys while I'm down here they'd never forgive me."
"Both have house parties," said Mrs.
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