and jacket on it. The humming radiator
diffused an atmosphere of drowsy warmth, and through a half-open door
she saw the glitter of the nickel taps above twin marble basins.

For a while the long turmoil of the night and day had slipped away from
her and she sat with closed eyes, surrendering herself to the spell of
warmth and silence. But presently this merciful apathy was succeeded by
the sudden acuteness of vision with which sick people sometimes wake out
of a heavy sleep. As she opened her eyes they rested on the picture
that hung above the bed. It was a large engraving with a dazzling white
margin enclosed in a wide frame of bird's-eye maple with an inner scroll
of gold. The engraving represented a young man in a boat on a lake
over-hung with trees. He was leaning over to gather water-lilies for the
girl in a light dress who lay among the cushions in the stern. The scene
was full of a drowsy midsummer radiance, and Charity averted her eyes
from it and, rising from her chair, began to wander restlessly about the
room.

It was on the fifth floor, and its broad window of plate glass looked
over the roofs of the town. Beyond them stretched a wooded landscape in
which the last fires of sunset were picking out a steely gleam. Charity
gazed at the gleam with startled eyes. Even through the gathering
twilight she recognized the contour of the soft hills encircling it, and
the way the meadows sloped to its edge. It was Nettleton Lake that she
was looking at.

She stood a long time in the window staring out at the fading water. The
sight of it had roused her for the first time to a realization of what
she had done. Even the feeling of the ring on her hand had not brought
her this sharp sense of the irretrievable. For an instant the old
impulse of flight swept through her; but it was only the lift of a
broken wing. She heard the door open behind her, and Mr. Royall came in.

He had gone to the barber's to be shaved, and his shaggy grey hair had
been trimmed and smoothed. He moved strongly and quickly, squaring his
shoulders and carrying his head high, as if he did not want to pass
unnoticed.

"What are you doing in the dark?" he called out in a cheerful voice.
Charity made no answer. He went up to the window to draw the blind, and
putting his finger on the wall flooded the room with a blaze of light
from the central chandelier. In this unfamiliar illumination husband
and wife faced each other awkwardly for a moment; the