e long suffering
and hardly used editor--life emerged from gloom into sunshine. Now his
spirit could soar untrammelled. It had taken its leap into the Empyrean.
He beheld his book beneath him dazzlingly clear. Three months communing
with nature, three months solitude on the pure mountain heights, three
months calm discipline of the soul--that was what he needed. Then to
work, and in another three months, _currente calamo_, the book would be
written.

"And what is Doria going to do on top of the Matterhorn?" asked my wife.

Doria cried out, "Oh, don't tease. We're not going near the Matterhorn.
We're going to read beautiful books, and see beautiful things and think
beautiful thoughts." She dragged Barbara a step or two aside. "Don't you
think this is the best thing that could have happened?" she asked, with
her anxious, earnest gaze.

"The very, very best, dear," replied Barbara gently.

And indeed it was. If ever a man realised himself to be on the verge of
the abyss, I am sure it was Adrian Boldero. Some haunting fear was set
at the back of his laughing eyes--the expression of an animal instinct
for self-preservation which discounted the balderdash about the soaring
yet disciplined soul.

I whispered to Doria: "Don't go too far into the wilds out of reach of
medical advice."

"Why?"

"You're taking away a sick man."

"Do you really think so?"

"I do," said I.

She looked to right and left and then at me full in the face, and she
gripped my hand.

"You're a good friend, Hilary. God knows I thank you."

From which I clearly understood that her passionately loyal heart was
grievously sore for Adrian.

During their absence abroad, which lasted much longer than three months,
we heard fairly regularly from Doria; twice or thrice from Adrian. After
a time he grew tired of mountaintops and solitude and declared that his
inspiration required steeping in the past, communion with the hallowed
monuments of mankind. So they wandered about the old Italian cities,
until he discovered that the one thing essential to his work was the
gaiety of cosmopolitan society; whereupon they went the round of French
watering-places, where Adrian played recklessly at baccarat and spent
inordinate sums on food. And all the time Doria wrote glowingly of their
doings. Adrian had put the book out of his head, was always in the best
of spirits. He had completely recovered from the strain of work and was
looking forward joyously to the