on't know
what;--like Cleopatra down the Nile!"

"I suppose you mean, then, that Dick Bogardus is Antony?" said Lanse,
working away at his fish-net. He had learned to make his nets rapidly
now, and was extremely proud of his handiwork; he gave away the results
of his labors to "fishermen of good moral character;"--it was necessary
that they should be moral.

At the moment when Garda was entering the rectory, Margaret, at East
Angels, was coming down the stone stairway on her way to the lower door,
where the phaeton and Telano were waiting; she was about to drive to
Gracias. As she paused a moment on the bottom step to button her gloves,
a long shadow darkened the flags at her feet; she looked up; Adolfo
Torres was standing at the open portal. After making one of his formal
bows he came towards her; a motion of his hand begged her to remain
where she was. "I thought you would be going there," he said. "I have
therefore brought these--will you take them for me?" Flowers were
abundant in Gracias, but the roses he held towards her were
extraordinarily beautiful; all crimson or pink, they glowed with color,
and filled the hall with a rich cinnamon scent.

"I will take them if you wish, Adolfo," Margaret answered. "But they
are--they are very--"

The roses looked indeed as if intended for a joyous occasion; they were
sumptuous, superb.

"You mean that they are bright. I know it; I intended them to be so." He
still held them towards her.

"Wait a while," she said.

His face changed. "I know you are my friend," he murmured, as if he were
saying it to convince himself. His eyes had dropped to his rejected
blossoms.

She could see that he was passionately angry, and making one of his firm
efforts to hold himself in control. "I will take them if you wish it,"
she said, gently, and she extended her hand. "I leave it to you. They
are wonderfully beautiful, I see that."

"They came from Cuba; I have been watching them growing for nineteen
months--for this."

"It is a house of mourning, you know, that I am going to," she said. "It
was, as you say, nineteen months ago--a long time; but the remembrance
will be very fresh at the rectory this afternoon."

His anger suddenly left him, he raised his eyes from his roses to her
face, and smiled. "It's always fresh to me!" he answered. The glow in
his dark countenance, as he brought this out, appalled her, it was like
a triumph--triumph over death. He walked to the door and toss