with her finger on her lips. "Your mother is
asleep and I don't want to disturb her."

"Evidently you haven't," he laughed.

"Hush!" Edith's full, deep contralto took on an affected sternness.
"You mustn't talk."

[Sidenote: Edith's Room]

"But I've got to," he returned. "Shall we go outdoors?"

"Yes, if you like."

"Don't you want a wrap of some sort?"

"Yes. Wait a moment, and I'll get it."

"No--tell me where it is, and I'll go."

"It's only a white chiffon scarf," she said. "I think you'll find it
hanging from the back of that low rocker, near the dressing-table."

He went up-stairs, silently and swiftly, and paused, for a moment, at
Edith's door. It seemed strange to have her permission to turn the knob
and go in. He hesitated upon the threshold, then entered the sweet
darkness which, to him, would have meant Edith, had it been blown to him
across the wastes of Sahara.

How still it was! Only the cheery piping of a cricket broke the
exquisite peace of the room; only a patch of moonlight, upon the
polished floor, illumined the scented dusk. He struck a match, and
lighted one of the candles upon the dressing-table.

The place was eloquent of her, as though she had just gone out. The
carved ivory toilet articles--he could have guessed that she would not
have silver ones,--the crystal puff box, with a gold top ornamented only
by a monogram; no, it was not a monogram either, but interlaced
initials trailing diagonally across it; the mirror, a carelessly
crumpled handkerchief, and a gold thimble--he picked up each article
with a delightful sense of intimacy.

[Sidenote: A Man's Face]

Face down upon the dressing-table was a photograph, framed in dull green
leather. That, too, he took up without stopping to question the
propriety of it. A man's face smiled back at him, a young, happy face,
full of comradeship and the joy of life for its own sake.

This, then, was her husband! Alden's heart grew hot with resentment at
the man who had made Edith miserable. He had put those sad lines under
her eyes, that showed so plainly sometimes when she was tired, made her
sweet mouth droop at the corners, and filled her whole personality with
the wistfulness that struck at his heart, like the wistfulness of a
little child.

This man, with the jovial countenance, and doubtless genial ways, had
the right to stand at her dressing-table, if he chose, and speculate
upon the various uses of all the daintiness that was spr