d her hand on his
forehead. Her lips were only a little smoother.

"Still troubled, dearest?" she asked him in her pleasant voice. "Still
dreaming?"

She was very dark, with reddish lights in her thick, low-growing hair,
and brown, broad eyebrows. Under them her eyes shone, a frank, dark
brown; she bore a curious likeness to that nurse he had seen in the
doctor's office, so many years ago. How strange that a passing fate
should have set his ideal of dear and loving women forever! She had
even the same small dimple at the left of her mouth.

She slipped to the floor beside him and laid her head in her wifely way
against his knee.

"I'm so sorry it bothers you, Phil," she murmured, her cheek against
his hand. "One would think you were a superstitious boy, you silly!
Hear baby--he's playing so dearly with those puppies! He pats them and
then pinches their tails so slyly! Oh, Ted! Oh, baby! Call to mummy!"

From the balcony above a shrill crow drowned the complaint of the
puppies.

"Doesn't he say it plainly!" she cried, flushing a beautiful
mother-rose. "And he is so strong, Phil!"

He caressed her absently. Ten years gone, and a dream had swept those
years to one side as one would draw a bronze curtain, had opened the
past as one would open a heavy mahogany door! All night a tall, carved
clock had ticked, ticked through his dreams, _one, two! one, two! one,
two!_ A sinister, sandy face had mocked and probed him, a fat, animal
face had irritated him, a pale, haunted face had pleaded with him. He
had tossed himself awake, had listened thankfully to the soft breathing
beside him, had kissed the fragrant braid across his face, and sunk
again into heavy, sultry nightmare, doomed to live that shameful day
through every clock-tick. And now his brain was cloudy with it. His
hand lay listless on her shoulder.

A five-year-old girl, lovely as a tea rose, stood doubtfully in the
cedar-wood door, poised for flight either way, sucking in the dimple at
the left of her mouth. Running at his call she flew into his arms and
dropped her buttercup head on his shoulder. For the first time he
smiled, and the wise wife slipped quietly away and watched them from
the door, guessing at their murmurs, counting their kisses. Later she
disturbed them reluctantly.

"I want to say you are not at home," she said, "but I daren't quite do
that, for he is from the States, dear, and it is important business.
His name," dropp