and sent out for some collars.

Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much of
good fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but he
did not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days the
strange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Only
once, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging the
dishes for him--against his protest, for he disliked being waited
on--he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. She
coloured.

"My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring."

Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment:
"Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil them
over here?"

It was that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had been
in his mind for some time.

"Wouldn't it be possible," he asked, "to bring your tray in here and
to eat together? It would be more sociable."

She smiled.

"It isn't permitted."

"Do you think--would another box of orchids----"

She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probably
be expelled."

He was greatly aggrieved.

"That's all foolishness," he said. "How is that any worse--any more
unconventional--than your bringing me your extra blanket on a cold
night? Oh, I heard you last night!"

"Then why didn't you leave it on?"

"And let you freeze?"

"I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night and
did no one any good."

Having got thus far from wedding rings, he did not try to get back.
He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour of
exercise outside the window, he sat inside reading--only apparently
reading, however.

Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out.

"Jenks!" called Billy Grant.

Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man,
rather fat, who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried meals
and soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twice
during a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet.

"Yes, sir," said Jenks, coming behind a strong odour of _spiritus
frumenti_.

"Jenks," said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "is
that bottle of yours empty?"

"What bottle?"

"The one in the closet."

Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks--a look of man to man,
brother to brother.

"Not quite, sir--a nip or two."

"At," suggested Billy Grant, "say--five dollars a nip?"

Jenks smiled.

"About th