membered after he had fled from her; but of which she had
taken less account when he was with her at Lammis long ago-When Crozier
of Lammis was with her long ago. How tall and shapely he was! How large
he loomed with the light behind him! How shadowed his face and how
distant the look in his eyes.

Somehow the room seemed too small for him, and yet he had lived in this
very house for four years and more; he had slept in the next room all
that time; had eaten at this table and sat in this very chair--Mrs.
Tynan had told her that--for this long time, like the master of a
household. With that far-away, brooding look in his face, he seemed in
one sense as distant from her as when she was in London in those dreary,
desolate years with no knowledge of his whereabouts, a widow in every
sense save one; but in her acts--that had to be said for her--a wife
always and not a widow. She had not turned elsewhere, though there had
been temptation enough to do so.

Crozier advanced to the centre of the room, even to the table laid for
dinner, before he was conscious of some one in the room, of a figure
by the chair. For a moment he stood still, startled as if he had seen a
vision, and his sight became blurred. When it cleared, Mona had come a
step nearer to him, and then he saw her clearly. He caught his breath as
though Life had burst upon him with some staggering revelation. If she
had been a woman of genius, as in her way Kitty Tynan was, she would
have spoken before he had a chance to do so. Instead, she wished to see
how he would greet her, to hear what he would say. She was afraid of him
now. It was not her gift to do the right thing by perfect instinct; she
had to think things out; and so she did now. Still it has to be said
for her that she also had a strange, deep sense of apprehension in the
presence of the man whose arms had held her fast, and then let her go
for so bitter a length of time, in which her pride was lacerated and her
heart brought low. She did not know how she was going to be met now,
and a womanly shyness held her back. If she had said one word--his name
only--it might have made a world of difference to them both at that
moment; for he was tortured by failure, and now when hope was gone,
here was the woman whom he had left in order to force gifts from fate to
bring himself back to her.

"You--you here!" he exclaimed hoarsely. He did not open his arms to her
or go a step nearer to her. His look was that of bl