ep you, old chap, I'm all right."

"Glad to hear it. You'll sleep. That's certain. But I wish to
goodness you'd given Nature a chance."

"Nature wouldn't have given _me_ a chance," the other answered with
sudden heat. "And there's a limit to what a man can stand. By the
way," he added in an altered tone, "I can't tell you how sorry I am
about Wyndham. But you must hope for the best."

"Thanks," Desmond answered quietly. "Good-night."

The door of his wife's room stood ajar, and in passing it to go to his
dressing-room, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a muffled
sob. Treading softly, he pushed the door open, and looked in.

A night-light in the basin, and one candle on the dressing-table showed
him a tall white figure bending over the rail of the cot where his son
lay asleep. Honor had discarded her dinner dress for a light wrapper,
and her loosened hair fell in a dusky mass almost to her knees.

For a few seconds Desmond stood watching her, uncertain whether to
intrude upon her grief or no. He knew her peculiar dread of separation
from those she loved, knew that throughout the sixteen mouths of her
child's life she had never left him for more than a few hours except to
go to Chumba, and then not without remonstrance. Yet she was leaving
him now of her own free will, for an indefinite time, and in the full
knowledge of the grim possibilities ahead. It is in such rare moments
of revelation that a man realises dimly what it may mean for a woman
dowered with the real courage and dignity of self-surrender to give
herself to him; that he is vouch-safed a glimpse into that mystery of
love, which cynics of the decadent school dismiss as "amoristic
sentiment," a fictitious glorification of mere natural instinct. But
Desmond took a simpler, more reverential view of a quality which he
believed to be the most direct touch of the Divine in man, and which he
had proved to be the corner-stone of his wife's character.

He went forward at length, but so noiselessly that Honor had no idea of
his presence till his arms came round her from behind, and drew her up
so close against him that her wet cheek touched his own.

"Theo . . . that wasn't fair!" she protested with a little broken laugh.

"Not quite. But I couldn't resist it."

Then they stood silent, looking down at the sleeping child.

He lay on his back, one half-opened hand flung high above his head, and
the fair soft face, in its halo of red-g