ments of life we draw drafts on our reserve forces, and no
effort seems too great. But we have to pay up. Peignton condensed the
energy of months into three or four minutes, and for the moment he is
bankrupt. It must have been a blood-curdling sight for you, my
darling,--and that poor girl, Teresa! She seemed the calmest of the
party, by the way."

"Calmness is comparative--everything is comparative. It's impossible to
know how much people feel... Oh, Beloved, there are so many sorts, and
if they don't feel _our_ way, it may be just as bad to them! Martin!
we've been married six months, we know each other six hundred times
better than when we began, and there's this virtue about me--I don't
pretend! You know the worst of me, as well as the best. Honestly--on
your solemnest oath,--have you _ever_ been sorry?"

Martin did not reply. He smiled a smile of ineffable content. Grizel
tilted her head on the cushion, and smiled back. "I _knew_ you haven't.
That's why I asked. If there had been the faintest doubt, I couldn't
have faced it to-day. But there are so many months--life is so long.
Martin! you might change!"

Martin's face sobered. His thoughts flew back to the girl wife who, for
a few short months, had shared his life; at whose death life itself had
seemed to end. He had been but twenty-five at the time, and he had
suffered with all the fierce intensity of youth. If Juliet had made a
similar suggestion in those far-off days, he would have refuted it with
scorn, yet he _had_ changed; the young image had faded, and a living
woman now filled his heart. Was it the remembrance of Juliet, which
made Grizel doubt?

"So long as you live, Grizel, it isn't possible that I could change. A
man who had once loved you could never be satisfied with an ordinary
woman. And I am a man now, not a boy. Even--even if I were alone
again--"

She leant forward in a quick caress.

"You are not going to be alone! I am not going to leave you, Honey! If
I were, I should not ask for promises. It's because I intend to live on
to eighty or ninety, that I'm anxious. I couldn't bear it if you grew
cool and cold. I wouldn't _try_ to bear it! Prosaic matrimony would
drive me to the devil. I can't tell you what sort of devil,--there
might be several, but a devil it would certainly be. But if you'll love
me, dear, I'll grow nearer the angels!"

He laid his head beside hers on the cushion, and they sat silently,
throu