e looked at Milly. "And all _that_ isn't a patch on my wife."

He looked at her with tenderness and admiration, and the look was the
flower, the perfection of his sanity.

Milly drew in her breath with a little sound like a sob. Her joy was so
great that it was almost unbearable.

Then he looked at Agatha and admired the green gown she wore. "You don't
know," he said, "how exquisitely right you are."

She smiled. She knew how exquisitely right _he_ was.

CHAPTER FIVE

Night after night she continued, and without an effort. It was as easy
as drawing your breath; it was indeed the breath you drew. She found
that she had no longer to devote hours to Harding Powell, any more than
she gave hours to Rodney; she could do his business in moments, in
points of inappreciable time. It was as if from night to night the times
swung together and made one enduring timeless time. For the process
belonged to a region that was not of times or time.

She wasn't afraid, then, of not giving enough time to it, but she _was_
afraid of omitting it altogether. She knew that every intermission
would be followed by a relapse, and Harding's state did not admit of any
relapses.

Of course, if time _had_ counted, if the thing was measurable, she would
have been afraid of losing hold of Rodney Lanyon. She held him now by a
single slender thread, and the thread was Bella. She "worked" it
regularly now through Bella. He was bound to be all right as long as
Bella was; for his possibilities of suffering were thus cut off at their
source. Besides, it was the only way to preserve the purity of her
intention, the flawlessness of the crystal.

That was the blessedness of her attitude to Harding Powell. It was
passionless, impersonal. She wanted nothing of Harding Powell except to
help him, and to help Milly, dear little Milly. And never before had she
been given so complete, so overwhelming a sense of having helped. It was
nothing--unless it was a safeguard against vanity--that they didn't
know it, that they persisted in thinking that it was Milly's plan that
worked.

Not that that altogether accounted for it to Harding Powell. He said so
at last to Agatha.

They were returning, he and she, by the edge of the wood at the top of
the steep field after a long walk. He had asked her to go with him--it
was her country--for a good stretch, further than Milly's little feet
could carry her. They stood a moment up there and looked around them.
A