ntly she called him again by name: "You say
that you are well--or rather Rita said so two days ago--and I'm
wondering whether in the interim you've fallen ill? Two days without
news from you is rather disquieting. Please tell me at once exactly how
you are?"

He succeeded in forcing something resembling a laugh: "I am all right,"
he said.

"I don't see how you could be--after the letter you wrote me. How much
of it did you mean?"

He was silent.

"Louis! Answer me!"

"All--of it," he managed to reply.

[Illustration: "She knelt down beside the bed and ... said whatever
prayer she had in mind"]

"_All!_"

"Yes."

"Then--perhaps you scarcely expected me to call up to-night. Did you?"

"No."

"Suppose I had not done so."

He shivered slightly, but remained mute.

"Answer me, Louis?"

"It would have been--better."

"For you?"

"For--both."

"Do you believe it?"

"Yes."

"Then--have I any choice except to say--good-night?"

"No choice. Good-night."

"Good-night."

He crept, shaking, into his bed-room, sat down, resting his hands on his
knees and staring at vacancy.

Valerie, in her room, hung up the receiver, buried her face in her hands
for a moment, then quietly turned, lowering her hands from her face, and
looked down at the delicate, intimate garments spread in order on the
counterpane beside her. There was a new summer gown there, too--a light,
dainty, fragile affair on which she had worked while away. Beside it lay
a big summer hat of white straw and white lilacs.

She stood for a moment, reflecting; then she knelt down beside the bed
and covered her eyes again while she said whatever prayer she had in
mind.

It was not a very short petition, because it concerned Neville. She
asked nothing for herself except as it regarded him or might matter to
his peace of mind. Otherwise what she said, asked, and offered, related
wholly to Neville.

Presently she rose and went lightly and silently about her ablutions;
and afterward she dressed herself in the fragile snowy garments ranged
so methodically upon the white counterpane, each in its proper place.

She was longer over her hair, letting it fall in a dark lustrous cloud
to her waist, then combing and gathering it and bringing it under
discipline.

She put on her gown, managing somehow to fasten it, her lithe young body
and slender arms aiding her to achieve the impossible between neck and
shoulders. Afterward she pinned on her big wh