ed, bringing no word
from her, the rooms of the House of the Future were empty.

He had advised her, when she needed counsel, to look and listen inside
herself, for a voice. But now, no such voice spoke to him, except to
say, "You have been a fool. You must unconsciously have expressed
yourself in some blundering way that disgusted her, broke the statue
she'd set up on a pedestal. She is 'disillusioned' indeed!"

A week dragged itself on into a fortnight after the day when Barbara's
answer ought to have come. Still Denin had done nothing but wait,
because it appeared to him that no explanation of his seeming
ungraciousness was possible. If Barbara did not want him any more, he
could not make her want him.

Had he not loved her so much, he might have thought her silence due to
illness; but he was sure that he should know if she were ill. She had
let him walk into the home of her soul and its secret garden of
thought; she had offered him the flowers of her childhood and girlhood
which no one else had ever seen; and if a blight had fallen upon her
body, he was so near that he would feel the chill of it in his own
blood. No, he told himself, Barbara was not ill. She had shut herself
away from him, that was all; and the very nature of his relationship
with her forbade his claiming anything which she did not wish to give.

He lost all hope of hearing again, at the end of a month, yet would not
let himself accuse her of injustice. Had she not a right to drop him if
she chose? He had no cause for complaining. He had received from the
"tankard of love" those two drafts which are said to recompense a man
for the pains of a lifetime, and he could expect no more. Yet he seemed
always to be listening, as if for some sound to come to him through
space, or even the faint echo of a sound, like the murmur in a bell
after it has ceased to chime.

One day, when five weeks lay between him and hope, a telegram was
brought to the Mirador. Denin opened it indifferently, for his
publisher often wired to him when a new edition of "The War Wedding"
came out, or if anything of special interest happened in connection
with the book. But this time the message was from England. It was
unsigned, yet he knew that it was from Barbara. She said, "My mother
has been at death's door for many weeks. Now she is gone. I am
writing."

"Thank God!" Denin heard himself gasp, and then was struck with remorse
for his hard-heartedness. He had thanked God bec