ity. Leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and
laughs on the surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
You seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement.
Own up. What secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?"

"Don't be a goose, Gilbert," was Anne's conjugal reply. "As for
Leslie, she is absurd and I'm going up to tell her so."

Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room. The little place
was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea. Leslie sat with
locked hands in the misty moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence.

"Anne," she said in a low, reproachful voice, "did you know Owen Ford
was coming to Four Winds?"

"I did," said Anne brazenly.

"Oh, you should have told me, Anne," Leslie cried passionately. "If I
had known I would have gone away--I wouldn't have stayed here to meet
him. You should have told me. It wasn't fair of you, Anne--oh, it
wasn't fair!"

Leslie's lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion.
But Anne laughed heartlessly. She bent over and kissed Leslie's
upturned reproachful face.

"Leslie, you are an adorable goose. Owen Ford didn't rush from the
Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning desire to see ME. Neither do I
believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
Cornelia. Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up
and put them away in lavender. You'll never need them again. There
are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole
in it, even if you cannot. I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture
on a prediction. The bitterness of life is over for you. After this
you are going to have the joys and hopes--and I daresay the sorrows,
too--of a happy woman. The omen of the shadow of Venus did come true
for you, Leslie. The year in which you saw it brought your life's best
gift for you--your love for Owen Ford. Now, go right to bed and have a
good sleep."

Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be
questioned if she slept much. I do not think she dared to dream
wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which
she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to
her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future. But she watched
the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer
night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.