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For the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by Peabody this truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured in the street, the unscrubbed mob crowding about her. She was conscious only that a great weight had been lifted. That her blood was flowing again, leaping, beating, dancing through her body. It seemed as though she could not too quickly tell Winthrop. For both of them she had lost out of their lives many days. She had risked losing him for always. Her only thought was to make up to him and to herself the wasted time. But throughout the day the one-time welcome, but now intruding, friends and the innumerable conventions of hospitality required her to smile and show an interest, when her heart and mind were crying out the one great fact.

It was after dinner, and the members of the house party were scattered between the billiard-room and the piano. Sam Forbes returned from the telephone.

“Tammany,” he announced, “concedes the election of Jerome by forty thousand votes, and that he carries his ticket with him. Ernest Peabody is elected his Lieutenant-Governor by a thousand votes. Ernest,” he added, “seems to have had a close call.” There was a tremendous chorus of congratulations in the cause of Reform. They drank the health of Peabody. Peabody himself, on the telephone, informed Sam Forbes that a conference of the leaders would prevent his being present with them that evening. The enthusiasm for Reform perceptibly increased.

An hour later Winthrop came over to Beatrice and held out his hand. “I’m going to slip away,” he said. “Good-night.”

“Going away!” exclaimed Beatrice. Her voice showed such apparently acute concern that Winthrop wondered how the best of women could be so deceitful, even to be polite.

“I promised some men,” he stammered, “to drive them down-town to see the crowds.”

Beatrice shook her head.

“It’s far too late for that,” she said. “Tell me the real reason.”

Winthrop turned away his eyes.

“Oh! the real reason,” he said gravely, “is the same old reason, the one I’m not allowed to talk about. It’s cruelly hard when I don’t see you,” he went on, slowly dragging out the words, “but it’s harder when I do; so I’m going to say ‘good-night’ and run into town.”

He stood for a moment staring moodily at the floor, and then dropped into a chair beside her.

“And, I believe, I’ve not told you,” he went on, “that on Wednesday I’m running away for good, that is, for a year or two. I’ve made all the fight I can and I lose, and there is no use in my staying on here to–well–to suffer, that is the plain English of it. So,” he continued briskly, “I won’t be here for the ceremony, and this is ‘good-by’ as well as ‘good-night.'”

“Where are you going for a year?” asked Miss Forbes.

Her voice now showed no concern. It even sounded as though she did not take his news seriously, as though as to his movements she was possessed of a knowledge superior to his own. He tried to speak in matter-of-fact tones.

“To Uganda!” he said.

“To Uganda?” repeated Miss Forbes. “Where is Uganda?”

“It is in East Africa; I had bad luck there last trip, but now I know the country better, and I ought to get some good shooting.”

Miss Forbes appeared indifferently incredulous. In her eyes there was a look of radiant happiness. It rendered them bewilderingly beautiful.

“On Wednesday,” she said. “Won’t you come and see us again before you sail for Uganda?”

Winthrop hesitated.

“I’ll stop in and say ‘good-by’ to your mother if she’s in town, and to thank her. She’s been awfully good to me. But you–I really would rather not see you again. You understand, or rather, you don’t understand, and,” he added vehemently, “you never will understand.” He stood looking down at her miserably.