rt," he declared, filling
her glass, "then you peel me one of those peaches, and we divide it.
After which we listen for a ring at the bell. To-night I expect a
visitor."

"A visitor?"

"Not a social one," he assured her. "A matter of business which I fear
will take me from you for the rest of the evening. So let us make the
most of the time until he comes."

She commenced her task with the peach, talking to him all the time a
little gravely, a sweet and picturesque picture of a graceful and very
desirable woman, her delicate shape and artistic fragility more than
ever accentuated by the sombreness of the background.

"Do you know, Everard," she said, "I am so happy in London here
with you, and I feel all the time so strong and well. I can read and
understand the books which were a maze of print to me before. I can
see the things in the pictures, and feel the thrill of the music, which
seemed to come to me, somehow, before, all dislocated and discordant.
You understand, dear?"

"Of course," he answered gravely.

"I do not wonder," she went on, "that Doctor Harrison is proud of me for
a patient, but there are many times when I feel a dull pain in my heart,
because I know that, whatever he or anybody else might say, I am not
quite cured."

"Rosamund dear," he protested.

"Ah, but don't interrupt," she insisted, depositing his share of the
peach upon his plate. "How can I be cured when all the time there is the
problem of you, the problem which I am just as far off solving as ever I
was? Often I find myself comparing you with the Everard whom I married."

"Do I fail so often to come up to his standard?" he asked.

"You never fail," she answered, looking at him with brimming eyes.
"Of course, he was very much more affectionate," she went on, after a
moment's pause. "His kisses were not like yours. And he was far fonder
of having me with him. Then, on the other hand, often when I wanted him
he was not there, he did wild things, mad things; he seemed to forget
me altogether. It was that," she went on, "that was so terrible. It was
that which made me so nervous. I think that I should even have been able
to stand those awful moments when he came back to me, covered with blood
and reeling, if it had not been that I was already almost a wreck. You
know, he killed Roger Unthank that night. That is why he was never able
to come back."

"Why do you talk of these things to-night, Rosamund," Dominey begged.

"I must, d