lopment of rigid economy on the part of her mistress, and she gave
notice; the house parlor-maid followed suit. No one seemed to have kept
Ian's desk tidy, his papers in order, or his clothes properly mended. It
was a joy to her to put everything belonging to him right.

When all was arranged to her satisfaction: "Ian," she said, sitting on
his knee with her head on his shoulder, "I can't bear to think how
wretched you must have been all the time I was away."

Ian was silent a minute.

"But you haven't been away, and I don't like you to talk as though you
had."

Wretched? It would have been absurd to think of himself as wretched now;
yet compared with the wonderful happiness that had been his for more
than half a year, what was this "house swept and garnished"? An empty
thing. Words of Tims's which he had thought irritating and absurd at the
time, haunted him now. "_You don't mean to say you haven't seen the
difference?_" He might not have seen it, but he had felt it. He felt it
now.

There was at any rate no longer any question of Dieppe. They took
lodgings at Sheringham and he made good progress with his book. Yet not
quite so good as he had hoped. Milly was indefatigable in looking up
points and references, in preventing him from slipping into the small
inaccuracies to which he was prone; but he missed the stimulus of
Mildred's alert mind, so quick to hit a blot in logic or in taste, so
vivid in appreciation.

Milly meantime guessed nothing of his dissatisfaction. She adored her
husband more every day, and her happiness would have been perfect had it
not been for the haunting horror of the possible "change" which might be
lurking for her round the corner of any night--that "change," which
other people might call what they liked, but which meant for her the
robbery of her life, her young happy life with Ian. He had taken her
twice to Norton-Smith before the great man went for his holiday.
Norton-Smith had pronounced it a peculiar but not unprecedented case of
collapse of memory, caused by overwork; and had spent most of the
consultation time in condemning the higher education of women. Time,
rest, and the fulfilment of woman's proper function of maternity would,
he affirmed, bring all right, since there was no sign of disease in Mrs.
Stewart, who appeared to him, on the contrary, a perfectly healthy young
woman. When Ian, alone with him, began tentatively to bring to the
doctor's notice the changes in character