hat is the matter," I persisted.

The little head turned restlessly on my coat sleeve, and the warmth
from the cheeks and lips came into my wrist. She seemed half inclined
to yawn, and the delicate left hand, with my ring flashing on it, came
to her lips and closed them when they had barely parted.

"People call it hysteria," she said at last. "It is a form of hysteria
now, but it did not begin with that. It was overstrain, nervous
breakdown, a collapse of the system. See my hand when I hold it up, how
it shakes? I can't control that, and my heart beats wildly at the
slightest exertion. I am exhausted, limp, Victor, ironed out by the
events of last year, very much like what your collar would be without
its starch!"

She was looking up at me now and half laughing. She had raised her hand
between me and the nearest lamp; it quivered violently, as she said,
and looked transparent and scarlet close against the light. I caught it
in mine and drew it up to my lips.

"Victor!" she said, indignantly, "release it! remember where we are!"

"I don't care where we are!" I muttered, letting go her hand, but not
before I had kissed it passionately across the tiny knuckles and in the
palm. It fell nerveless into her lap; her face grew so desperately
pallid, even her lips, that I was startled.

"Lucia! What is the matter?"

The lids that seemed ready to sink over her eyes lifted again.

"Nothing; but--I was telling you, just this minute, I am
exhausted--done for."

I looked at her in dismay, and I saw her heart must be beating
violently; the red geraniums against her breast rose and sank in a
series of rapid, irregular jerks.

"I am sorry," I murmured. "Forgive me;" and my heart sank suddenly with
a vague, in definable sense of apprehension as I looked at her.

Where was the girl who had come to me a year ago, full of overflowing,
eager, exuberant health and life, hungry for love, longing and ardent
for a kiss? Not here; somewhere in the past that I had neglected and
refused. And the contrast between the two images struck me like a lash
across the brain. The next minute I had recovered myself. This was only
a passing in disposition of Lucia's, the sooner we were married now the
better.

"Well, dearest, if it is only hysteria and nervous strain, and so on,"
I said, taking up the main thread of our conversation, "then, for that,
our marriage and a long rest, in which you would do nothing but amuse
yourself, would be the be