Mrs. Tracy's embarrassment increased. When Vance flew out at her like that, she said, she couldn't keep her wits together; and what was to be gained by making a fuss, anyhow? She was determined, whatever he said, that her child should be free to make a fresh start, and get back her health and spirits… . She talked on and on in the same half scared yet obstinate tone. They'd been married too young, she said; that had always been her chief objection to the match. And Vance with no fixed prospects … or not enough to support a wife on, anyhow … and his parents doing nothing … and Laura Lou's health so delicate, and her lungs threatened since that crazy climb up the mountain in the snow, and no way, as far as her mother knew, for her to get to a mild climate for the winter, as the doctor said she ought to, if she was to get her lungs healed… . Mrs. Tracy paused, breathless and drawn. "It all depends on you, Vance," she began again, still panting a little. "You've got your own life—your own ambitions. I don't say but what you'll go a great way yet, and maybe get onto a big newspaper job some day. But meantime, how are you going to get ahead with a sick wife on your hands—and your own family not doing anything to help? … Let her go, Vance; I say it in your own interest as well as hers; for pity's sake, let her go. Think what it would be to you to be free yourself."

He stood with bent head, her last words resounding strangely in his ears. "Think what it would be to be free yourself." He had not thought of that.

"Let her go—go where?"

South, Mrs. Tracy hurriedly explained—to California somewhere. That was what the doctor said. She'd worked it all out with Upton. Upton had had the offer of a job in a big California nursery, and he would make up his mind to take it if his mother would go out and keep house for him; and Mrs. Tracy would sell the little place at Paul's Landing for whatever it would bring, if only they could get Laura Lou away before the cold weather… . And out there, in some of those western states, folks said you could get a divorce as easy as you get a cake of yeast at the grocer's. Just walk in and ask for it; and nothing said against either party … no question about other women or anything … so that if Vance wanted to marry again he'd have a clean slate … absolutely… . "Oh, Vance, if you only would—if you'd only agree to part as friends, and let my child have her chance!" Mrs. Tracy broke off in a spasm of dry sobbing.