e it."

"And does it feel more like it now?"

"Not much, yet. But it will, in time."

"Yes. In _time_."

The pause, and the emphasis smote her. But again she ignored the cloud
no bigger than a man's hand; defying its power to veil her sunlight.

"The proper thing after a wedding is . . to kiss your wife," she remarked
demurely, without looking up.

"Is it? I don't remember doing so last time."

"You never did; and it's bad luck not to. That's why everything went
wrong! You were too shy; and . . your first wife didn't much like that
sort of thing."

"My second wife will have to put up with it, whether she likes it or
not!" he answered, drawing her towards him by dear and delicious degrees.
"We won't play fast and loose with our luck this time."

An abrupt knock at the door startled her out of his arms; and the curtain
was pushed aside by Desmond:--a strangely transfigured Desmond, with set
jaw, and desperate eyes.

"My dear man . ." Lenox began. But an intuition of catastrophe past the
show of speech made him break off short.

Then Desmond spoke, in a voice thick and unlike his own.

"Sorry to spoil things by interrupting you in this way. But one had to
tell you. It's Honor . . ."

He could get no further: but his eyes were terribly eloquent; and the
silence held them all as in a vice. The awakening woman in Quita gave
her courage to break it.

"May I go to her?" she pleaded. "And help her . . if one can?"

Though the plea was addressed to Desmond, she glanced first at Lenox, and
read approval in his eyes.

But Desmond shook his head.

"That's my business," he answered quietly. He had mastered his voice by
now. "I want you to take over charge here. It's a sharp attack. I
shan't leave her again, till . . . it's over."

And before either of them knew how to answer him, the curtain had fallen
heavily behind him.

Overwhelming tragedy, striking across their golden hour like a naked
sword, wrenched them out of themselves.

Without a word Quita knelt down beside her husband, bowing her forehead
on the back of his hand. Women of her temperament are little given to
the habit of prayer: and her rare communings with the Hidden Soul of
Things more often took the form of wordless aspiration, than of direct
petition or praise. But now her uplifted soul went out in a passionate
appeal to the Great Giver, and the great Taker Away, for the life of the
woman whom she had hated so heartily less t