that it might
have been done delicately, so that Alden need not feel himself a brute,
nor Rosemary's pride be hurt.

[Sidenote: A Sleepless Night]

Then, through the night, came a definite perception, as though Alden
himself had given her assurance. Rosemary had done it herself, had she?
Very well--that was as it should be. For a moment she dwelt upon the
fact with satisfaction, then, a little frightened, began to speculate
upon this mysterious tie between herself and Alden.

The thing was absurd, impossible. She curled her short upper lip
scornfully in the darkness. "You know it is," she said, imperiously, in
her thought, as though in answer to a mocking question from somewhere:
"Is it?"

She turned restlessly. All at once her position became tiresome,
unbearable. She wanted to go to sleep, indeed she must sleep, for she
had a long hard day before her to-morrow, putting her things into her
trunks. Perhaps, if she rose and walked around her room a little----

One small, pink foot was on the floor, and the other almost beside it,
when a caution came to her from some external source: "Don't. You'll
take cold." She got back into bed, shivering a little. Yes, the polished
floor was cold.

Then she became furious with Alden and with herself. Why couldn't the
man go to sleep? It must be past midnight, now, and she would walk, if
she wanted to. Defiantly and in a triumph of self-assertion, she went to
the open window and peered out into the stillness, illumined by neither
moon nor stars. The night had the suffocating quality of hangings of
black velvet.

[Sidenote: Sitting in the Dark]

She lighted a candle, found her kimono and slippers, wrapped herself in
a heavy blanket, and drew up a low rocker to the open window. Then she
put out the light and settled herself to wait until she was sleepy.

The darkness that clung around her so closely seemed alive, almost
thrilling, as it did, with fibres of communication perceptible only to a
sixth sense. She marvelled at the strangeness of it, but was no longer
afraid. Her fear had vanished at the bidding of someone else.

Why was it? she asked herself, for the hundredth time, and almost
immediately the answer came: "Why not?"

Why not, indeed? If a wireless telegraph instrument, sending its call
into space, may be answered with lightning-like swiftness by another a
thousand miles away, why should not a thought, without the clumsy medium
of speech, instantly respond to ano