nown so well, should leave them alone.

Only one jarring note, and that none too resonant, broke the long
harmony of Lloyd's happiness during these days. Bennett was deaf to it;
but for Lloyd it vibrated continuously and, as time passed, with
increasing insistence and distinctness. But for one person in the world
Lloyd could have told herself that her life was without a single element
of discontent.

This was Adler. It was not that his presence about the house was a
reproach to Bennett's wife, for the man was scrupulously unobtrusive. He
had the instinctive delicacy that one sometimes discovers in simple,
undeveloped natures--seafaring folk especially--and though he could not
bring himself to leave his former chief, he had withdrawn himself more
than ever from notice since the time of Bennett's marriage. He rarely
even waited on the table these days, for Lloyd and Bennett often chose
to breakfast and dine quite to themselves.

But, for all that, Lloyd saw Adler from time to time, Kamiska invariably
at his heels. She came upon him polishing the brasses upon the door of
the house, or binding strips of burlaps and sacking about the
rose-bushes in the garden, or returning from the village post-office
with the mail, invariably wearing the same woollen cap, the old
pea-jacket, and the jersey with the name "Freja" upon the breast. He
rarely spoke to her unless she first addressed him, and then always with
a precise salute, bringing his heels sharply together, standing stiffly
at attention.

But the man, though all unwittingly, radiated gloom. Lloyd readily saw
that Adler was labouring under a certain cloud of disappointment and
deferred hope. Naturally she understood the cause. Lloyd was too
large-hearted to feel any irritation at the sight of Adler. But she
could not regard him with indifference. To her mind he stood for all
that Bennett had given up, for the great career that had stopped
half-way, for the work half done, the task only half completed. In a way
was not Adler now superior to Bennett? His one thought and aim and hope
was to "try again." His ambition was yet alive and alight; the soldier
was willing where the chief lost heart. Never again had Adler addressed
himself to Lloyd on the subject of Bennett's inactivity. Now he seemed
to understand--to realise that once married--and to Lloyd--he must no
longer expect Bennett to continue the work. All this Lloyd interpreted
from Adler's attitude, and again and again