sn't guessed. Shouldn't I know if she came up
behind me, I wonder?" he mused; and suddenly he said to himself: "If
she doesn't turn before that sail crosses the Lime Rock light I'll go
back."

The boat was gliding out on the receding tide. It slid before the Lime
Rock, blotted out Ida Lewis's little house, and passed across the
turret in which the light was hung. Archer waited till a wide space of
water sparkled between the last reef of the island and the stern of the
boat; but still the figure in the summer-house did not move.

He turned and walked up the hill.

"I'm sorry you didn't find Ellen--I should have liked to see her
again," May said as they drove home through the dusk. "But perhaps she
wouldn't have cared--she seems so changed."

"Changed?" echoed her husband in a colourless voice, his eyes fixed on
the ponies' twitching ears.

"So indifferent to her friends, I mean; giving up New York and her
house, and spending her time with such queer people. Fancy how
hideously uncomfortable she must be at the Blenkers'! She says she
does it to keep cousin Medora out of mischief: to prevent her marrying
dreadful people. But I sometimes think we've always bored her."

Archer made no answer, and she continued, with a tinge of hardness that
he had never before noticed in her frank fresh voice: "After all, I
wonder if she wouldn't be happier with her husband."

He burst into a laugh. "Sancta simplicitas!" he exclaimed; and as she
turned a puzzled frown on him he added: "I don't think I ever heard
you say a cruel thing before."

"Cruel?"

"Well--watching the contortions of the damned is supposed to be a
favourite sport of the angels; but I believe even they don't think
people happier in hell."

"It's a pity she ever married abroad then," said May, in the placid
tone with which her mother met Mr. Welland's vagaries; and Archer felt
himself gently relegated to the category of unreasonable husbands.

They drove down Bellevue Avenue and turned in between the chamfered
wooden gate-posts surmounted by cast-iron lamps which marked the
approach to the Welland villa. Lights were already shining through its
windows, and Archer, as the carriage stopped, caught a glimpse of his
father-in-law, exactly as he had pictured him, pacing the drawing-room,
watch in hand and wearing the pained expression that he had long since
found to be much more efficacious than anger.

The young man, as he followed his wife into th