letter I had from her she said she was in the hospital and the

operation was slated to take place in about a week’s time. That would make it somewhere around day after to-morrow. Good heavens! I can’t bear to think of it!”

“You mustn’t, any more than you can help,” said Mabel, gently. “It won’t do Mother Matson or the rest of us any good for you to get down sick yourself, Joe. I wonder Dougherty doesn’t order you off the team for a rest.”

“You wrote in one of your letters that you had taken a flying trip to Riverside,” Joe reminded her, and Mabel nodded.

“I didn’t want to stay long. Mother Matson was so sick and I was afraid she would think she must exert herself to entertain me. So I just stayed overnight and caught the morning train back to Goldsboro.”

“Did Mother give you any message for me?” Joe’s voice was husky.

“Just her love--and this,” said Mabel, softly. She held out her hand, and in the palm of it lay a tiny, heart-shaped locket. Joe recognized it as one that had long rested in his mother’s jewelry case. He took it and opened it, and the sweet face of his mother in her youth smiled back at him.

Joe got up abruptly and went to the window, standing for a long time looking out, with his back to his wife. Mabel knew that he was having a struggle with himself, and waited quietly until he turned and came back to her.

“If I could get away from the team long enough to go to her!” he said huskily. “But I can’t just now. It’s impossible. I’ve got to keep after the men every minute, or they’re apt to go to pieces.”

“She doesn’t expect you just now, dear,” said Mabel, soothingly. “She knows you can’t leave the team. Now don’t worry.”

Joe sank down in the chair again, his head in his hands. Finally he looked up and asked:

“How about Clara? Are things as bad there as we thought they were?”

“I’m afraid so, Joe. It seems to me that Clara is getting more and more entangled with that millionaire all the time. He reads poetry to her, too, in spite of the fact that he’s a great, strapping, athletic looking chap.”

“Oh, then you saw him?” cried Joe, all interest at once.

“Saw him!” repeated Mabel, with a short laugh. “You might better ask me if I saw anything else. He was around the place from morning to night. I think if Mother Matson hadn’t been in such poor health he would have come around to breakfast, too.”

Joe got to his feet and strode around the room, hands thrust deep in his pockets.

“Serious as all that!” Mabel heard him mutter to himself. “How does Clara act? How does she treat this--boob?” he demanded, suddenly stopping short in front of Mabel and glaring at her in exasperation. “Does she encourage him?”

“You might call it that,” Mabel returned, with a puzzled frown. “She certainly accepts his attentions. Lets him take her out in his beautiful car, plays tennis with him, and listens while he reads his foolish poems to her.”

Joe literally ground his teeth in futile rage and exasperation. He began again his restless pacing of the room.

“Did you have a chance to talk to her?” he continued his cross-examination. “Did you ask her what she meant by treating a fine fellow like Jim so shabbily?”

“You forget, Joe dear, that I’m not Clara’s guardian. It wasn’t my place to take her to task. All I could do was try to sound her. She evaded all my questions with some light answer, and when I asked her point-blank whether she intended to turn Jim down in favor of her millionaire----”

“What did she say?” interrupted Joe, swiftly.

“She merely remarked that I ought to know better. She seemed to be offended, and if I had pressed things just then the result might have been a real quarrel. I thought the best thing to do was drop the whole thing. After all, Clara is old enough to know her own mind.”

“I doubt it!” said Joe, bitterly, adding in helpless indignation as he again faced his wife: “Can you imagine any reasonably intelligent girl turning down good old Jim for a flossy millionaire?”

“Well, money sometimes dazzles a girl, especially young and very pretty ones like Clara,” returned Mabel, judicially. “I tell you what let’s do, Joe. I know it would be lovely to have our first dinner alone to-night, but don’t you think we might include Jim? It might cheer him up.”

“It would be an act of charity,” agreed Joe. “Jim is pretty low in his mind these days. I’m sure he guesses there is something wrong.”

But in spite of their whole-souled attempt to give Jim a good time that night, both Joe and Mabel felt that they had failed. Jim tried to rouse himself and meet their fun with some of his own, but nothing could disguise the fact that his heart was not in it.

He asked one or two listless questions about Clara, almost, Mabel thought, as though from a sense of duty, and after that maintained a dead silence on the subject they both knew was uppermost in his mind.

They had dined in a jolly restaurant full of lights and music, but despite the hilarity all about them, their party had been a dismal failure. They were glad when the last course was over and they could leave the place.

It was when they had reached the hotel and Mabel had slipped into another room to remove her hat and cloak that Joe turned to his chum with a casual question.

“Got your letter from Clara all right this week, did you?” he asked, in a tone that was not quite natural.

Jim looked at him, surprised, then turned away before he answered shortly:

“Not yet.”