ture lands of Durham glowed with a
green that was more a feeling than an actual tint. The guard lighted the
little lamp in the roof of the carriage. At once the twilight hollowed
to a purple gulf through which they sped recklessly.

Now Sophy glanced again at her husband. His head was thrown back against
the cushions, his hands relaxed. There was an expression of supreme
peace on his quiet face. "The peace that passeth all understanding"
flashed through Sophy's mind. She shivered. This peace of Cecil's and
that other divine peace were so cruelly removed one from the other. Yet
this, too, was "past understanding" for all outside the black magic of
its influence. The lamp turned the window-pane near which he sat into a
dusky mirror. In its surface she saw repeated the sinister quiet of his
profile, and through this reflection of his face dimly she saw the
further landscape. Yes, thus it was that she saw the whole world
now--through the medium of her husband's image.

When they got out at Dynehurst Station they found the night chilly with
a promise of rain in the air. Gaynor hastened forward with his master's
overcoat-- Bobby was bundled up in Miller's shawl over his little
pea-jacket.

Sophy looked regretfully up at the sky, strewn thickly with little
shells of cloud. She dreaded a long rainy spell at Dynehurst--the
weeping trees, and flowers, and walls. It was like being enclosed in a
vast, grey-glass globe streaming with water, to be immured in Dynehurst
during a season of rain.

Gerald had sent a waggonette and a brougham to meet them.

"Come with me, Sophy," Cecil said, taking her hand and going toward the
brougham.

Side by side they went rolling swiftly between the darkling hedges,
across broad pasture lands that gave forth a dank, sweet country perfume
of earth and grass. There was a smell of cattle and the breath of cattle
in the moist air. These scents and the being so close beside him in the
brougham made her feel as though she were repeating her first drive to
Dynehurst, taken during her honeymoon. That also had been on a night in
May. But then all had been a wonder and a dream. Now she was horribly
wide awake. There was no wonder--only a sad surmise, half answered by
her own reason already. A long, dim corridor of locked doors seemed
stretching before her. She must force each lock, drag him through the
opened door with her, and lock it fast again behind them. They might
emerge into that "wide place" of