ey went upstairs together. In the bedroom
Cecily found her little boy sleeping quietly; she bent above him for a
few moments, and with soft fingers smoothed the coverlet.

There was no further conversation between them--except that Cecily just
mentioned the news her aunt had received from Mrs. Spence.

At breakfast they spoke of the usual subjects, in the usual way. Elgar
had his ride, amused himself in the library till luncheon, lolled about
the drawing-room whilst Cecily played, went to his club, came back to
dinner,--all in customary order. Neither look nor word, from him or
Cecily, made allusion to last night's incident.

The next morning, when breakfast was over, he came behind his wife's
chair and pointed to an envelope she had opened.

"What strange writing! Whose is it?"

"From Mrs. Travis."

He moved away, and Cecily rose. As she was passing him, he said:

"What has she to say to you?"

"She acknowledges the letter I sent her yesterday morning, that's all."

"You wrote--in the way you proposed?"

"Certainly."

He allowed her to pass without saying anything more.

CHAPTER III

GRADATION

During the first six months of her wedded life, Cecily wrote from time
to time in a handsomely-bound book which had a little silver lock to
it. She was then living at the seaside in Cornwall, and Reuben
occasionally went out for some hours with the fishers, or took a long
solitary ride inland, just to have the delight of returning to his home
after a semblance of separation; in his absence, Cecily made a
confidant of the clasped volume. On some of its fair pages were verses,
written when verse came to her more easily than prose, but read not
even to him who occasioned them. A passage or two of the unrhymed
thoughts, with long periods of interval, will suggest the course of her
mental history.

"I have no more doubts, and take shame to myself for those I ever
entertained. Presently I will confess to him how my mind was tossed and
troubled on that flight from Capri; I now feel able to do so, and to
make of the confession one more delight. It was impossible for me not
to be haunted by the fear that I had yielded to impulse, and acted
unworthily of one who could reflect. I had not a doubt of my lover, but
the foolish pride which is in a girl's heart whispered to me that I had
been too eager--had allowed myself to be won too readily; that I should
have been more precious to him if more difficulty had been p