d I was twenty-seven, and our two lives
melted into each other like the flowing together of two streams. Neither
judge nor court can resolve into their original waters the rivers that
have already become one."

She smiled faintly, perhaps bitterly. "Doesn't your figure of speech
carry you too far? In our case the judge and the court were only
incidental. What really dissolved our union was--"

"I know what you're going to say. And it _was_ against the letter of the
contract. Of course. I've never denied that, have I? But in every true
marriage there's something over and above the letter of the contract--to
which the letter of the contract is as nothing. And if ever there was a
true marriage, Edith, ours was."

"Stop!" Her little figure became erect. Her eyes, which up to the
present he had been comparing to forget-me-nots, as he used to do, now
shone like blue-fired winter stars. "Stop, Chip."

"Why?"

"Because I ask you to."

"But why should you ask me to, when I'm only stating facts? It _is_ a
fact, isn't it? that our marriage was a true one in every sense in which
a marriage _can_ be true, till other people--no, let me go on!--till
other people--your Aunt Emily most of all--advised you to exact your
pound of flesh and the strict rigor of the law. I gave you your pound of
flesh, Edith, right off the heart; so that if atonement could be made in
that way--"

"Chip, _will_ you tell me what good there is in bringing this up now?
You're married to some one else, and so am I. We can't go back, because
we've burned the bridges behind us--"

"But it's something to know that we'd go back if we could."

"I haven't said so."

"True."

He fell silent because of the impossibility of speech. He made no move
to go. To sit with her in this way, without speaking, was like an
obliteration of the last seven years, reducing them to a nightmare. It
was a shock to him, therefore, when she pointed to a distant spire on a
hill, saying:

"There's Harrow. We shall be in London in half an hour."

In London in half an hour, and this brief renewal of what never should
have been interrupted would be ended! He recalled similar journeys with
her over this very bit of line, when the arrival in London had been but
the beginning of long delightful days together. And now he might not see
her for another seven years; he might never see her any more. It was
unnatural, incredible, impossible; and yet the facts precluded any
rebellion on h