d round, that he might see for himself that there was
nothing that could be considered sinister behind it. Her passionate
concentration on it would show that there _was_ nothing behind, no
vision of anything darker and deeper. It was as if she said to him,
"I know the dreadful thing you're afraid of. I'm showing you what it
is, so that you needn't think it's that."

Not that she was afraid of his thinking it. She had set her
happiness high, in a pure serene place, safe from the visitations of
his terror. She conceived that the peace of it might in time come to
constitute a kind of happiness for him. That gross fear could never
arise between him and her. All the same, she perceived that a finer
misgiving might menace his perfect peace. He might, if he were
subtle enough, imagine that she was giving him too much, and that he
owed her something. His chivalry might become uneasy. She must show
him how perfectly satisfied she was. He must see that the thing she
had hold of was great, was immense, that it filled her life to the
brim, so that there wasn't any room for anything else. How could he
owe her anything when he had given her that?

She must make him see it very clearly.

"It wasn't only that you _helped_," she said, "to bring it out of
me. It wasn't in me. When it came, it seemed to come from somewhere
outside. Somebody must have put it into me. I believe such a thing
is possible. And there wasn't anybody, you know, but you."

"I doubt," said he, "the possibility. Anyhow, you may safely leave
me out of it."

"Think," she said, "think of the time when you were left out of it,
when it was only me. It's inconceivable--the difference----"

"Let's leave it at that. Why rub the bloom off the mystery?"

"Do I rub the bloom off?"

"Yes, if you make out that I had anything to do with it."

"If it's mystery you want, don't you see that's the greatest mystery
of all--your having had to do with it?"

"But why should I, of all people? Is there any sign of Freda Farrar
in anything I did before I knew her?"

"Is there any sign of her in anything she did before she knew you?"

He was silent.

"Then," said Freda, "if it isn't you it's we. We've collaborated."

If he had not been illumined by the horrid light Julia had given him
he would have said that this was only Freda's way, another form of
her adorable extravagance. Now he wondered.

Poor Freda went on piling up her defenses. "Don't you see?" said
she. "That's w