ke a spell off, and do nothing, and be as selfish as I
please. I'm not bound. If a roving fit seizes me I can shut up house
and go off on my travels. I don't intend to spend all my life in a rut.
I'm a poor gentlewoman myself, and need my own medicine. Don't imagine
that I'm tying myself down to continual drudgery, for I'm not; but I
must, I must have an object in life!"

"And for two whole years you propose to shut yourself up in a hospital?"

"I do; with the exception of an afternoon a week, a day a fortnight, and
three weeks' annual holiday."

"May I ask what Piers has to say?"

Vanna's smile was both whimsical and pathetic.

"You may; but I shan't answer. Several volumes of very strong language,
poor dear man; but he knows--at the bottom of his heart he knows that I
am right!"

Not even to Jean could Vanna confess that her plans for the future had a
nearer and more personal object than mere philanthropy. The
conservation of love! This was the great problem with which she
struggled in secret. Her clear, far-sighted brain realised the truth,
despised by most lovers, that love is a plant which needs careful and
assiduous tending if it is to live and retain its bloom. Kindred
interests, kindred hopes, kindred efforts and aims--these are the foods
by which it is nourished in happy home-life; but if these be wanting--if
instead of the hill tops there stretches ahead a long flat plain, what
then can nourish the plant and guard it from decay? Piers had sworn
that his troth should not bind him if his heart grew tired; but, having
received that promise, Vanna never again allowed herself to allude to
the subject. Her woman's instinct taught her that no good could come of
continually putting such a possibility into words. She must write, act,
speak, as if the eternity of the love between them was beyond doubt--
fixed as the hills. What precautions seemed advisable to keep it so she
must take upon herself, and with as slight an appearance of intention as
might be. Piers might rage and fume at the prospect of her years in
hospital, but she knew that the scarcity of their meetings would be a
gain rather than a loss. Once a week they would meet for a few hours;
once a fortnight there would come a long happy day, which would make an
epoch to be anticipated and remembered with tenderest thought. Better
so than to run the risk of satiety, and the hastening of that day when
the dread question might arise: "What ne