COMMUTER'S WIFE 323 



detailed and full of his professional work. Restless 

 and miserable, but still keeping rigidly to her ped- 

 estal, she went abroad, ostensibly to study art, 

 but really to follow the great procession who wander 

 aimlessly about, guide-book in hand, for various 

 reasons trying to kill time out of eye-shot of the 

 critical. 



Every other week letters were exchanged, and 

 in order to match his professional enthusiasm in 

 kind, Dora dropped the easy gossip of travel, visited 

 the hospitals wherever she went, grew technical, 

 and dilated upon the splendid career offered women 

 through trained nursing, hinting idly that she felt 

 strongly drawn to make the vocation her own. 



When two years had nearly passed, she turned 

 homeward in an apparently leisurely sort of way 

 without special significance. But in reality she was 

 feverishly impatient, and her trunk contained many 

 of the pretty things that make up bridal finery. 

 When she arrived and was well rested, she sent Him 

 (for she thought the word in capitals now) a note to 

 say at what hotel she was stopping, and that she 

 was "only passing through the city on her way 

 home" nothing more. 



He came at once with honest eagerness. A 

 lover would have noticed that it was two years 



