ring."

"Isn't she wonderful? So beautiful, so fascinating, so--_simple_! I am
overwhelmed that she should give up so much. That's the only fly in the
ointment. I can't feel that it is justified. You must help me to look
out for a house for her, Katrine--a bright, sunny place, which won't be
too painful a contrast. I can afford a higher rent nowadays, and she
must have all that she wants. She said to me--`Wherever we go there
will always be a Katrine's room, a place for Katrine.' That was one of
the first things she said!"

"Sweet of her!" said Katrine, smiling bravely once again. "I shall be
delighted to come as a visitor sometimes, but not to live! Newly
married couples are best alone. I must move my camp."

Martin looked troubled and anxious.

"For a time perhaps; just for a time. What about that visit to
Dorothea? Wouldn't it be a good chance to fit that in?"

The blood rushed over Katrine's face.

"No!" she said sharply. "No!" and there was such unflinching decision
in her voice that Martin dared not pursue the subject. Was there after
all some foundation for Grizel's romance about a mysterious lover in
India? It seemed like it, since no human girl would blush like that at
the mention of a female friend. And yet, if there _were_ a lover, why
this emphatic refusal?

Martin gave it up, too engrossed in his own beatitude to feel much
interest in the problem.

"Well! we needn't discuss things to-day, dear. There's plenty of time,"
he said, using Grizel's own words. "Only remember this--we shan't be
satisfied, either of us, unless _you_ are happy!" He kissed her again,
and passed on to his study. From the central place on the mantelpiece
the portrait of his dead wife gazed at him with innocent young eyes as
it had gazed every day of the last eight long years. He stood before
it, gazing back, his face working with emotion.

There had been a time when to return that gaze had been his first
impulse upon entering the room, days when he had sat for hours holding
the photograph in his hand, had risen from his work to bend over it once
and again; times again when work, and success, and the trend of life had
brought a passing forgetfulness, followed by periods of passionate
longing and despair. He had even thought of ending life itself for the
sake of that smiling face. Now for months past it had counted for
little more than the ornaments by which it was surrounded...

"_Juliet_!" he murmured