hemselves round his arm, she drew a long trembling sigh.

"Oh, Martin, hold me close! Don't let anything happen!"

"What _has_ happened, dear, to upset you like this?"

"Nothing; but I'm afraid. Oh, if we are very good, and go on being
thankful, and doing our best, need we have troubles to spoil it?
It's... it's _Paradise_, Martin, and I want it to last!"

Martin's face quivered above her bowed head. He had lived in Paradise
before, and it had not lasted. He knew that it never did last, that
sweet and dear as might be the after life, it was only for a brief
period that human beings could remain in their Eden. He held her close,
with a jealous touch.

"So long as we have each other, we can bear the rest. Honestly, dear,
we shall have less to bear than most people, for the simple reason that
we won't _let_ things trouble! When one has gained the big treasure,
the gnats can't sting. It's not like you, Grizel, to be afraid!"

"I am hideously afraid, but it's your fault. It's loving you so much
that has turned me into a coward. I'm afraid of everything where you
are concerned,--draughts and drains, and accidents, and editors, and
letters in blue envelopes, and perils by night and by day. Every day I
bury you of a new disease. If you sneeze it's consumption, if you cough
it's pneumonia, if you scratch your finger, it's blood-poisoning. You
looked pale this morning, so it was pernicious anaemia." A little laugh
came with the last words, and she raised her head to peer into his face.
"_Do_ you feel by any chance as if you had pernicious anaemia?"

Martin took her by the shoulders and led her to the door.

"I shall do, if you keep me waiting any longer for lunch. Go upstairs
and take off your hat."

But Grizel lingered by the door.

"Do you about me?"

"Do I what about you?"

"Think of all the gruesome things that might happen? Lie awake at night
imagining them.--Get in a panic every time I am five minutes late?"

"You were over five minutes late to-day, but my pulse was normal. I
merely concluded that you had met a friend and were enjoying a gossip."

"Men," said Grizel sententiously, "are stupid, dense, prosaic brutes."
She gave a tilt to her one-sided hat, and added in a tone of the utmost
nonchalance: "By the way, I _did_ hear some gossip. Captain Peignton is
engaged to that fair girl he took in to dinner at the Court. Teresa--
don't you call her?--Teresa Mallison."

"By Jove, is he? That