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 stay with them. . . but she lives such a long way off. Maybe I'd just better give it up."

"No, you mustn't do that. I'll come and stay with them. I'd like to."

"You don't mind my leading the choir, Philip?"

"No, of course not."

"Because I want you to be pleased. I want it to be a new start now, here in this new house."

He didn't answer, and after an awkward pause, she said, "I wouldn't go at all, but I think Reverend Castor needs me. He's got so many worries. Yesterday when I was talking to him, he began all at once to cry . . . not out loud, but the tears just came into his eyes. His wife's an awful woman. He's been telling me about her. And now that Mrs. Timpkins has moved away, there's no one to take the choir who knows anything about music."

"Of course, go by all means."

He was glad for two reasons, because he knew she liked the importance of leading the choir, and because he would have these evenings alone with the children—his children—who had been born in reality as he stood looking down at them a moment before.

"Good-night, Naomi," he said abruptly.

"Philip. . . ."

"Yes."

"Philip, you won't stay?"

"No, Naomi. . . . It wouldn't look right."

There was a pause.

"Sometimes you're like your mother, Philip."

He went out and in his agitation found himself down the flimsy pine stairway before he remembered his overcoat. When he returned and opened the