called that it was of Honiton
lace over old-rose silk, and that Curtis had said it was the prettiest
he had ever seen. It was an hour before midnight, and the lake was so
still as to appear veritably solid. The moon was reflected upon the
surface with never a ripple to blur its image. The sky was grey with
starlight, and only a vague bar of black between the star shimmer and
the pale shield of the water marked the shore line. Never since that
night could she hear the call of whip-poor-wills or the piping of night
frogs that the scene did not come back to her. The little "Thetis" had
throbbed and panted steadily. At the door of the engine room, the
engineer--the grey MacKenny, his back discreetly turned--sat smoking a
pipe and taking the air. From time to time he would swing himself into
the engine room, and the clink and scrape of his shovel made itself
heard as he stoked the fire vigorously.

Stretched out in a long wicker deck chair, hatless, a drab coat thrown
around her shoulders, Laura had sat near her husband, who had placed
himself upon a camp stool, where he could reach the wheel with one hand.

"Well," he had said at last, "are you glad you married me, Miss
Dearborn?" And she had caught him about the neck and drawn his face
down to hers, and her head thrown back, their lips all but touching,
had whispered over and over again:

"I love you--love you--love you!"

That night was final. The marriage ceremony, even that moment in her
room, when her husband had taken her in his arms and she had felt the
first stirring of love in her heart, all the first week of their
married life had been for Laura a whirl, a blur. She had not been able
to find herself. Her affection for her husband came and went
capriciously. There were moments when she believed herself to be really
unhappy. Then, all at once, she seemed to awake. Not the ceremony at
St. James' Church, but that awakening had been her marriage. Now it was
irrevocable; she was her husband's; she belonged to him indissolubly,
forever and forever, and the surrender was a glory. Laura in that
moment knew that love, the supreme triumph of a woman's life, was less
a victory than a capitulation.

Since then her happiness had been perfect. Literally and truly there
was not a cloud, not a mote in her sunshine. She had everything--the
love of her husband, great wealth, extraordinary beauty, perfect
health, an untroubled mind, friends, position--everything. God had been
g