wers were gone,
furniture was back in place, and the upper front room had been opened
widely to the suddenly spring-like afternoon. There was not a fallen
violet petal to remind her descendants that the old mistress of forty
full years was gone for ever.

Annie's boys came to bring Mother home, after so many strange days'
absence, and Norma liked the way that Annie smiled wearily at Hendrick,
and pressed her white face hungrily against the boys' blonde, firm
little faces. Leslie, in an unwontedly tender mood, drew Acton's arm
about her, as she sat in a big chair, and told him with watering eyes
that she would be glad to see old Patsie-baby on Sunday. Norma sat
alone, the carved Tudor oak rising high above her little tired head with
its crushed soft hair, and Chris sat alone, too, at the other end of
the table, and somehow, in the soul fatigue that was worse than any
bodily fatigue, she did not want the distance between them bridged, she
did not want--she shuddered away from the word--love-making from Chris
again!

Leslie, who felt quite ill with strain and sorrow, went upstairs to bed,
the Von Behrens went away, and presently Acton disappeared, to telephone
old Doctor Murray that his wife would like a sedative--or a heart
stimulant, or some other little attention as a recognition of her broken
state.

Then Chris and Norma were alone, and with a quiet dignity that surprised
him she beckoned him to the chair next to her, and, leaning both elbows
on the cloth, fixed him with her beautiful, tired eyes.

"I want to talk to you, Chris, and this seems to be the time!" she said.
"You'll be deep in all sorts of horrible things for weeks now, poor old
Chris, and I want this said first! I've been thinking very seriously all
these days--they seem months--since Aunt Marianna died, and I've come to
the conclusion that I'm--well, I'm a fool!"

She said the last word so unexpectedly, with such obvious surprise, that
Chris's tired, colourless face broke into something like a smile. He had
seated himself next to her, and was evidently bending upon her problem
his most earnest attention.

"Some months ago," Norma said in a low voice, "I thought--I
_thought_--that I fell in love! The man was rich, and handsome, and
clever, and he knew more--of certain things!--in his little finger, than
I shall ever know in my whole life. Not exactly more French, or more of
politics, or more persons--I don't mean quite that. But I mean a
conglomera