h to the deck, to freedom, to safety--she would believe--to sails
trimmed for an immortal romance. Would Kitty's cowardice, and Kitty's
prayers--they were interwoven he felt sure--keep her for one month from
running away with Sir Walter? In only a month's time she could respond
and not be shattered: in only a month's time the ship of romance would
be really safe, she might walk on board with no shutting of the eyes or
holding of the breath. Holland gazed, and the facts became clearer and
more ominous. For the lack of a knowledge that was his, Kitty and Sir
Walter might wreck their lives. All the motives for the concealment of
his secret, the vanity, the bravery, the cherishing tenderness that had
inspired him, were scattered to the winds. The nest was a tattered,
wind-pierced ruin. And he, already, was a ghost. Kitty should not lack
the knowledge.

The dew was falling, and he had grown chilly. He walked back quickly to
the house that he had left a little while ago so vividly aware of the
sweetness that the shallow cup might hold. The cup was empty. Not a drop
of self was left to hope or live for.

* * * * *

He waited till the next day to tell her. He did not feel a tremor, he
felt too deep a fatigue.

Their meeting at dinner was a placid gliding over the depths; two hooded
gondolas floating side by side, each with its shrouded secret. But
skill and vigilance were his. Kitty's gondola drifted with the current,
knowing no need of skill, secure of secrecy. The eyes she quietly lifted
to her husband were unclouded. He guessed the inner drama that held her
thoughts, the tragically beautiful _role_ that she herself played in it.
It was as a heroine that she saw herself. Why not, indeed. No heroine
could have played her part more gracefully and worthily, and a heroine's
innocent eyes could not be expected to see as far as his "ironic" ones.

It was the sense of distance, from her, from everything, that grew upon
him during the long intervals of the night when he lay awake and watched
the stars slowly cross his open window. He was no longer divided from
himself, no longer groping, as in the train, to find a clue between the
doomed man and the watcher. The self that he had found was adrift upon a
sea, solitary indeed, and saw pigmy figures moving in the shifting
lights and shadows of the shore. His mild preoccupation was with one
figure, light, fluttering, foolish: she was walking near the ver