sed her. It was
early in her widowhood to be kissed, but she made no protest. She did not
feel a widow; she felt a free woman again. It is even to be feared that
her lips were responsive.

Antony, too, was changed. He was paler and almost careworn. There was no
doubt of his joy at her coming, no doubt that it was greater than the day
before. But it was qualified by some other troubling emotion. Now and
again he looked at her with different eyes--eyes from which the joy had
of a sudden faded, rather fearful eyes that looked a question which could
not be asked. Her eyes rather shrank from his, and when they did look
into them it was with a like question.

But they were too deeply in love with one another for any other emotion
to hold them for long at a time. Presently in the joy of being together,
looking at one another, touching one another, the fearfulness and the
question passed from their eyes.

There was nothing rustic about the Pavilion inside or out. It was of
white marble, brought from Carrara for the fifth Baron Loudwater at the
end of the eighteenth century; and a whim of her murdered husband had led
him to replace the original, delicate, rather severe furniture by a most
comfortable broad couch, two no less comfortable chairs with arms, a
small red lacquer table and a dozen cushions. He had hung on each wall a
drawing of dancing-girls by Degas. Since the coverings of the couch and
the cushions were of Chinese silken embroideries, the interior appeared a
somewhat bizarre mixture of the Oriental and the French.

Antony had been in some doubt that Olivia would come. But he had thought
it natural that she should come to him in such an hour of distress, for
he knew the simple directness of her nature. Therefore he had taken no
chance. He had gone to High Wycombe, ransacked its simple provision
shops, and brought away a lunch basket.

She was for returning to the Castle to lunch. But he persuaded her to
stay. She needed no great pressing; she had a feeling that every hour was
precious, that it was unsafe to lose a single one of them: a foreboding
that she and Antony might not be together long. It almost seemed that a
like foreboding weighed on him. At times they seemed almost feverish in
their desire to wring the last drop of sweetness out of the swiftly
flying hour.

After lunch again the thought came to her that she ought to go back to
the Castle, that she might be needed, and missed; but it found no
express