ago.

A strain from that unforgotten music came to her now, carrying her to
the stars! Oh, not for Lawson the splendid rehabilitation of the strong,
except in that one moment of denial when he had risen by the might of
his manhood in renunciation for her sake; only the humble virtues of his
weakness could be his--yet perhaps, in the sight of the God who pities,
no such small offering, after all!

"Dosia, you didn't really _care_ for him!"

She smiled with pale lips and brimming eyes--an enigmatic answer which
Billy could not read. He sat beside her, smoothing her dress furtively,
until she got up, and, whispering, "I must go," left the room,
unconscious of Girard's following gaze.

"I think we'd better be getting back," said the latter, in an odd voice,
rising in the middle of one of Justin's sentences, as Billy came
straying in to join the group.

Lois' heart leaped. She had felt that another moment of live bait and
reminiscences would be more than she could stand.

"You need some rest," she said gratefully. "You have been tired out in
our service."

"Oh, I'm not tired at all," he returned, shortly. Her work seemed to
catch his eye for the first time and, in a desire to change the subject,
"What are you making?" he asked.

"A ball for Redge. I made one for Zaidee, and he felt left out--he's of
a very jealous disposition," she went on abstractedly. "Are you of a
jealous disposition, Mr. Girard?"

"I!" He stopped short, with the air of one not accustomed to taking
account of his own attributes, and apparently pondered the question as
if for the first time. When he looked up to answer, it was with abrupt
decision: "Yes, I am."

"Don't look so like a pirate," said young Billy, giving him a thump on
the back that sent them both out of the house, laughing, when Lois rose
and went over to Justin's side.

Husband and wife were at last alone.

XXIV

In the days that followed, Justin, going away in the morning very early
with a set face, coming home very late in the evening with that set face
still, hardly seemed to notice the children or Dosia.

"Justin has so much on his mind." Lois kept repeating the words over and
over, as if she found in them something by which to hold fast. Rich in
beauty as she was, full of love and tender favor, with the sweetness and
the pathos of an awakening soul, her husband seemed to have no eyes, no
thought for her. That one murmured sentence in the hallway was all her
food to