"I am very sorry," said Beth.
"So am I," sympathised Miss Jenks.
"I wanted to ask him to come up here this evening," said Beth. "You are sure I cannot get him at his hotel?"
"Very sure," replied Miss Jenks. So Beth, much disappointed, left the telephone.
Miss Jenks could have told Beth more. When the sisters had gone from the mill, the stenographer found in the typewriter a sheet which she took out and laid silently before her employer. He looked at it for a while, then—tore it up. He had passed beyond the stage of treasuring reminders of his lady. Only the day before he had found and destroyed a little hoard of mementos which seemed to reproach him with his lack of success. Judith, he told himself with that grimness which was a feature of his self-control, did not exactly inspire poetic dreaming. So he destroyed the letter, but when his day's work was over he turned reluctantly from going to see her.
Miss Jenks saw his hesitation as, after putting on his hat, he stood at the door and visibly asked himself: "Which way?" To the right led up the hill and to Judith; to the left would bring him to his cottage; straight ahead stood a trolley-car ready to start back to the city. The little stenographer would have been wise enough to send him where, at that moment, Judith was thinking of him. But like a man he blundered.
"Hang it!" he thought, "she doesn't want to see me all the time." He counted up that he had seen her twice in one week; Sunday was the earliest that he could go again. Also he remembered Ellis's house-plans. So Miss Jenks, with a sense of disappointment which was both personal and unselfish, saw him board the car.
At her house Beth scratched a note to Mather; it contained only the words: "Follow it up!" She would send it in the morning. But after dinner Judith received a telephone message from Mrs. Harmon, asking her if she would not come over for the evening. Judith consented; it would be neighbourly to go.
"Will you come?" she asked of Beth.
"Is the Judge there?" Beth inquired.