mor. It had
saved her from many dangers, from none more insidious than that lurking
in five years' experience as a successful author. It had rescued her from
the slough of despond when unappreciative publishers rejected her most
ambitious attempts; it had come to her aid also when a southern admirer
whose intentions were better than his rhetoric, sent her a manuscript ode
constructed in her honor. She had won success in her profession; but she
had won it at the expense of some hard knocks. But, however much the
world might be awry, two people had never lost faith in her talent. To
her father and her husband, to their encouragement and their belief in
her future, Theodora owed her best inspiration.

For the past year, she had forsaken her inky way and given herself up to
a well-earned rest, wandering from Mexico to Alaska and back again to
Helena. Now that she was settled in her home once more, the spirit of
work was lacking. Theodora was domestic, and she found it good to take up
her household cares again, so for a month after her return she turned a
deaf ear to her publisher while she and her husband revelled in their
coming back to humdrum ways much as a pair of children play at
housekeeping. Then Theodora's conscience asserted itself, with the
discouraging result that she became undeniably cross and, over his paper
of an evening, Billy watched her in respectful silence. Past experience
had taught him what this portended.

Two days later, Theodora came to luncheon with unruffled brow. Across the
table, her husband looked at her inquiringly.

"Under way, Teddy?"

"Yes, at last."

"I'm glad. I do hope nothing will interrupt you."

"Something will; it always does. Fortunately it is Lent and not much is
stirring. Anyway, I mean to have my mornings free, whatever comes."

"I'll mount guard on the threshold, if you want," he responded.

Only a week afterward, Theodora was in her writing-room, hard at work.
Her desk, surmounted by a shabby photograph of her husband in his
boyhood, was orderly and deserted; but the broad couch across the western
window was strewn with sheets of manuscript which overflowed to the
floor, while in the midst of them Theodora sat enthroned, a book on her
knee and her ink insecurely poised on one of the cushions beside her.
Across the lawn she could see The Savins among the tall, bare trees, and
she paused now and then to watch the yellow sunshine as it sifted down
through the branches. Al