t of
irregular steps leading out of the big room on to the first floor,
where the housekeeper lived in state, gave access to the further rooms
near the kitchen and sculleries.

Maggie had fallen in love with the place from the instant that she had
entered it. She had been warned in her French convent of the giddy
gaieties of the world and its temptations; and yet it seemed to her
after a week in her new home that the world was very much maligned.
There was here a sense of peace and sheltered security that she had
hardly known even at school; and little by little she had settled down
here, with the mother and the son, until it had begun to seem to her
that days spent in London or in other friends' houses were no better
than interruptions and failures compared with the leisurely, tender
life of this place, where it was so easy to read and pray and possess
her soul in peace. This affair of Laurie's was almost the first
reminder of what she had known by hearsay, that Love and Death and
Pain were the bones on which life was modeled.

With a sudden movement she leaned forward, took up the bellows, and
began to blow the smoldering logs into flame.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, upstairs on a long couch beside the fire in his big
bed-sitting-room lay a young man on his face motionless.

A week ago he had been one of those men who in almost any company
appear easy and satisfactory, and, above all, are satisfactory to
themselves. His life was a very pleasant one indeed.

He had come down from Oxford just a year ago, and had determined to
take things as they came, to foster acquaintanceships, to travel a
little with a congenial friend, to stay about in other people's
houses, and, in fact, to enjoy himself entirely before settling down
to read law. He had done this most successfully, and had crowned all,
as has been related, by falling in love on a July evening with one
who, he was quite certain, was the mate designed for him for Time and
Eternity. His life, in fact, up to three days ago had developed along
exactly those lines along which his temperament traveled with the
greatest ease. He was the only son of a widow, he had an excellent
income, he made friends wherever he went, and he had just secured the
most charming rooms close to the Temple. He had plenty of brains, an
exceedingly warm heart, and had lately embraced a religion that
satisfied every instinct of his nature. It was the best of all
po