times, the demon of salvation began gradually to assume a kindly aspect
that at times became almost benign. In fact, this one was not a demon at
all, but a liberator: the demon, she perceived, stalked behind him, and
his name was Notoriety. It was he who would flay her for coquetting with
the liberator.

What if she were flayed? Once married to Chiltern, once embarked upon
that life of usefulness, once firmly established on ground of her own
tilling, and she was immune. And this led her to a consideration of
those she knew who had been flayed. They were not few, and a surfeit
of publicity is a sufficient reason for not enumerating them here. And
during this process of exorcism Notoriety became a bogey, too: he had
been powerless to hurt them. It must be true what Chiltern had said
that the world was changing. The tragic and the ridiculous here joining
hands, she remembered that Reggie Farwell had told her that he had
recently made a trip to western New York to inspect a house he had built
for a "remarried" couple who were not wholly unknown. The dove-cote, he
had called it. The man, in his former marriage, had been renowned all
up and down tidewater as a rake and a brute, and now it was an exception
when he did not have at least one baby on his knee. And he knew,
according to Mr. Farwell, more about infant diet than the whole staff of
a maternity hospital.

At length, as she stared into the darkness, dissolution came upon it.
The sills of her windows outlined themselves, and a blurred foliage
was sketched into the frame. With a problem but half solved the day had
surprised her. She marvelled to see that it grew apace, and presently
arose to look out upon a stillness like that of eternity: in the grey
light the very leaves seemed to be holding their breath in expectancy
of the thing that was to come. Presently the drooping roses raised their
heads, from pearl to silver grew the light, and comparison ended.
The reds were aflame, the greens resplendent, the lawn sewn with the
diamonds of the dew.

A little travelling table was beside the window, and Honora took her pen
and wrote.

"My dearest, above all created things I love you. Morning has come,
and it seems to me that I have travelled far since last I saw you.
I have come to a new place, which is neither hell nor heaven, and in
the mystery of it you--you alone are real. It is to your strength
that I cling, and I know that you will not fail me.