previous day's happenings came to Olga, she was
already so deeply engrossed in household duties that she was able to
dismiss the matter without much difficulty. It was one of the busiest
mornings of the week, and no sooner had she finished indoors than she
donned a sun-bonnet and big apron and betook herself to the
raspberry-bed to gather fruit for jam.

The day was hot, and Violet had established herself in the hammock under
the lime-trees with a book and a box of cigarettes. The three boys had
gone with Nick on a fishing expedition, and all was supremely quiet.

The sun blazed mercilessly down upon Olga as she toiled, but she would
not be discouraged. The raspberries were many and ready to drop with
ripeness, and the jam-making could not be deferred. So intent was she
that she really almost forgot the physical discomfort in her anxiety to
accomplish her task. She had meant to do it in the cool of the previous
evening, but her talk with Nick had driven the matter absolutely from
her mind.

So she laboured in the full heat of a burning August day, till her head
began to throb and her muscles to ache so unbearably that it was no
longer possible to ignore them. It was at the commencement of the last
row but one (they were very long rows) that she became aware that her
energies were seriously flagging. The rest of the garden seemed to be
swimming in a haze around her, but she stubbornly ignored that, and bent
again to her work, fixing her attention once more with all her
resolution upon the great rose-red berries that were waiting to be
gathered. She must finish now. She had promised herself to clear the bed
by luncheon-time. But it was certainly very hard labour, harder than she
had ever found it before. She began to feel as if her limbs were
weighted, and the fruit itself danced giddily before her aching eyes.

Suddenly she heard a step on the ash-path near her. She looked up,
half-turning as she did so. The next instant it was as if a knife had
suddenly pierced her temples. She cried out sharply with the pain of it,
staggered, clutched wildly at emptiness, and fell. The contents of her
basket scattered around her in spite of her desperate efforts to save
them, and this disaster was to Olga the climax of all. She went into a
brief darkness in bitterness of spirit.

Not wholly did she lose consciousness, however, for she knew whose arms
lifted her, and even very feebly tried to push them away. In the end she
found h