er. It turned out, by the way, to have been his bracelet I
rescued. I could have wrung his neck, and I didn't speak to her for a
month."

Honora repressed an impulse to comment on this incident. With his arm
over her shoulder, he turned the pages idly, and the long lists of
guests which bore witness to the former life and importance of Highlawns
passed before her eyes. Distinguished foreigners, peers of England,
churchmen, and men renowned in literature: famous American statesmen,
scientists, and names that represented more than one generation of
wealth and achievement--all were here. There were his school and college
friends, five and six at a time, and besides them those of young girls
who were now women, some of whom Honora had met and known in New York or
Newport.

Presently he closed the book abruptly and returned it to the safe. To
her sharpened senses, the very act itself was significant. There were
other and blank pages in it for future years; and under different
circumstances he might have laid it in its time-honoured place, on the
great table in the library.

It was not until some weeks later that Honora was seated one afternoon
in the study waiting for him to come in, and sorting over some of the
letters that they had not yet examined, when she came across a new
lot thrust carelessly at the bottom of the older pile. She undid the
elastic. Tucked away in one of the envelopes she was surprised to find
a letter of recent date--October. She glanced at it, read involuntarily
the first lines, and then, with a little cry, turned it over. It was
from Cecil Grainger. She put it back into the envelope whence it came,
and sat still.

After a while, she could not tell how long, she heard Hugh stamping the
snow from his feet in the little entry beside the study. And in a few
moments he entered, rubbing his hands and holding them out to the blaze.

"Hello, Honora," he said; "are you still at it? What's the matter--a
hitch?"

She reached mechanically into the envelope, took out the letter, and
handed it to him.

"I found it just now, Hugh. I didn't read much of it--I didn't mean to
read any. It's from Mr. Grainger, and you must have overlooked it."

He took it.

"From Cecil?" he said, in an odd voice. "I wasn't aware that he had sent
me anything-recently."

As he read, she felt the anger rise within him, she saw it in his eyes
fixed upon the sheet, and the sense of fear, of irreparable loss, that
had come over