g.... And then return no more."

She rose, signed him to remain seated, came around to where he sat,
and perched herself on the arm of his chair.

"If you don't mind," she said, "I shall smooth out that troubled
crease between your eyebrows." And she encircled his head with both
arms, and laid her smooth hands across his forehead. Then she touched
his hair lightly, with her lips.

"We are great sinners," she murmured, "are we not, my darling?"

And drew his head against her breast.

"Of what am I robbing _her_, Clive? Of the power to humiliate you,
make you unhappy. It is an honest theft.

"What else am I stealing from her? Not love, not gratitude, not duty,
nothing of tenderness, nor of pride nor sympathy. I take nothing,
then, from her. She has nothing for me to steal--unless it be the
plain gold ring she never wears.... And I prefer a new one--if,
indeed, I am to wear one."

He said, deeply troubled, "How do you know she never wears a ring?"
And he turned and looked up at her over his shoulder. The clear azure
of her eyes was like a wintry sky.

"Clive, I know more than that. I know that your wife is in New York."

"What!" he exclaimed, astonished.

"I have been aware of it for weeks," she said tranquilly.

He remained silent; she continued to caress his hair:

"Your wife," she went on thoughtfully, "will learn much when she dies.
There is a compulsory university course which awaits us all,--a school
with many forms and many grades and many, many pupils. But we must die
before we can be admitted.... I have never before spoken to you as I
have spoken to-day.... Perhaps I never shall again.... The world is a
blind place--lovely but blind.

"As for the woman who wears your name but wears no ring of yours she
has been moving through my crystal for many days;--I would have made
no effort to intrude on her had she not persisted in the crystal,
haunted it,--I cannot tell you why--only that she is always there,
now.... And last night I knew that she was in New York, and why she
had come here.... Shall you see her to-day?"

"Where is she?"

"At the Regina."

"Are you sure?"

The girl calmly closed her eyes for a moment. After a brief silence
she opened them: "She is still there.... She will awake in a little
while and ring for her breakfast. The two men you drove out of the
garden last night are waiting to see her. There is another man there.
I think he is your wife's attorney.... Have you decided to see