and let me
ring. I must speak to the O'Mara woman, or somebody. Why didn't the fools
let me know? Have you been ill all these weeks?"

Myra let him place her on the couch; smiling up at him reassuringly, as
he stood before her.

"You must not ring the bell, Jim," she said. "Maggie is at the Lodge; and
Groatley would be so astonished. I am quite well."

He looked around, in man-like helplessness; yet feeling something must be
done. A long ivory fan, of exquisite workmanship, lay on a table near. He
caught it up, and handed it to her. She took it; and to please him,
opened it, fanning herself gently as she talked.

"I am not ill, Jim; really dear, I am not. I am only strangely happy and
thankful. It seems too wonderful for our poor earthly hearts to
understand. And I am a little frightened about the future--but you will
help me to face that, I know. And I am rather worried about little things
I have done wrong. It seems foolish--but as soon as I realised Michael
was coming home, I became conscious of hosts of sins of omission, and I
scarcely know where to begin to set them right. And the worst of all
is--Jim! we have lost little Peter's grave! No one seems able to locate
it. It is so trying of the gardeners; and so wrong of me; because of
course I ought to have planted it with flowers. And Michael would have
expected a little marble slab, by now. But I, stupidly, was too ill to
see to the funeral; and now Anson declares they put him in the
plantation, and George swears it was in the shrubbery. I have been
consulting Groatley who always has ideas, and expresses them so well, and
he says: 'Choose a suitable spot, m' lady; order a handsome tomb; plant
it with choice flowers; and who's to be the wiser, till the
resurrection?' Groatley is always resourceful; but of course I never
deceive Michael. Fancy little Peter rising from the shrubbery, when
Michael had mourned for years over a marble tomb on the lawn! But it
really is a great worry. They must all begin digging, and keep on until
they find something definite. It will be good for the shrubbery and the
plantation, like the silly old man in the parable--no, I mean fable--who
pretended he had hidden a treasure. Oh, Jim, don't look so distressed. I
ought not to pour out all these trivial things to you; but since I have
known Michael is coming back, my mind seems to have become foolish and
trivial again. Michael always has that effect upon me; because--though he
himself is