ou hold it all at
the sword's point? You're afraid of death or change?"

"Yes."

"How frank you are!" Isabel smiled fleetingly. "Aren't there any
locked doors?--no?--I may go wherever I like ?--Lawrence, are
you sorry Val's dead?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, not Val again!"

"One locked door after all?"

"I was fond of him," said Lawrence with difficult passion. "He
told me once that I broke his life, it was no one's doing but
mine that he had to go through the crucifixion of that last hour
at Wanhope, and he was killed for me." He left her and went to
the window, flung it up and stood looking out into the night.
"I'd have given my life to save him. I'd give it now--now."

"I heard from Laura this morning."

"I wonder she dared write to you."

"Major Clowes is wonderfully better. He drives out with her
every day and mixes with other people in the sanatorium and makes
friends with them. He's been sleeping better than he has ever
done since his accident."

"Good God!"

"He has been having a new massage treatment, and there's just a
faint hope that some day he may be able to get about on
crutches."

Lawrence had an inclination to laugh. "That's enough," he said,
shuddering. "I don't want to hear any more."

"She sent a message to you."

"Well, give it to me, then."

"'Don't let Lawrence suppose that Bernard has gone unpunished.'"

"He should have stood his trial," said Lawrence thickly. "It was
murder."

He understood all that Laura's laconic message implied. Bernard
reformed was Bernard broken by remorse: if he had shot himself--
which was what Lawrence had anticipated--he would have deserved
less pity. Yet Lawrence would have liked some swifter and less
subtle form of punishment.

Out of doors in the garden an owl was hooting and the night air
breathed on him its perfume of lilac and violets. How quiet it
was and how fragrant and dim! one could scarcely distinguish
between the dewy glimmer of turf and the dark island-like
thickets of guelder-rose and other flowering shrubs. It was one
of those late spring nights that are full of the promise of
summer; but for Val there were no summers to come. His death had
been as quiet as his life and without any struggle; his head on
Lawrence's arm, he had stretched himself out with a little sigh,
and was gone. Lawrence with his keen physical memory could still
feel that light burden leaning on him. Isabel too had memories
she was afraid of, the