each side. At one side of the little
enclosure there was a trellis concealing, as I knew, a range of
out-offices. At the other side was a stable and coach-house.

It was growing dusk now, but the Cottage was lit up. Through the
unshuttered windows I could see the light of a fire and the glow of a
pink-shaded lamp in the room that used to be the drawing-room. The
opposite room was also fire-lit and lamp-lit.

The hall door stood wide open, and Sheila, my lover's spaniel, stood
wagging her tail in the doorway.

"Your cook is already installed, darling," my lover said in the low
voice which I feared in him "I told her to make herself scarce. It was
not likely we should want her at such a time."

He took me in his arms and lifted me across the threshold. The little
house glowed warmly, and seemed to invite us to a home. How holy, how
beautiful, it would have been if the man by my side had been Anthony
Cardew instead of Richard Dawson! He still held me in his arms when he
had set me down and pressed me to him. I trembled with repulsion and he
felt that I trembled, without understanding. He let me go almost
roughly.

"Did I frighten you?" he asked, roughly tender. "You shivered,
sweetheart. Oh, to think that in three days more we shall come home here
never to be parted any more!"

He was eager as a boy. In the little drawing-room a tea-table was set
and a silver kettle sang above a spirit-lamp. Everything was ready for
tea. There were little silver-covered dishes with spirit-lamps burning
under them, and even at such a moment I could not help noticing the
beauty of the Worcester cups and saucers, with pansies and tulips and
roses and forget-me-nots in tiny bunches on the white.

"Let us see the rest of the house while the kettle is boiling," he said,
and caught at my hand to make me go with him. But I dreaded it, this
visiting which ought to have been so tender and holy. I said that I
wanted some tea, that I was cold.

He put me in a deep chair and kneeling before me he chafed my hands, now
and again stopping to kiss them. I was grateful when the kettle suddenly
hissed and he stood up and said that for this once he was going to make
the tea. So many days and years I should make it for him, sitting
opposite to him and making the place where we were together Heaven by my
face.

When it was ready he poured it out and brought it to me. He fed me with
little pieces of hot teacake and other dainties. I took as long in
d