kissed her and clung to
her as a child might have done on finding someone to protect it; she
recalled the wild words which Ella had uttered, and, finally, the
terrible expression which had appeared on her face as she whispered that
reckless answer to Phyllis' question, when she had picked up her wrap
and flung it around her just before the sound of footsteps had come to
their ears. All that she recalled in connection with that extraordinary
visit of Ella's was quite intelligible to her; but the mystery of all
was more than neutralized by her recollection of the way Ella had
thrown herself into her husband's arms. That action should, she felt, be
regarded as the one important factor, as it were, in the solution of the
problem of Ella's mood--Ella's series of moods. Nothing else that she
had done, nothing that she had said, was worthy of being taken account
of, alongside that dominant act of the true wife.

The little whisper which suggested to her that there was a good deal
that was mysterious in the incident of her friend's visit she refused to
regard as rendering it less obligatory on her--Phyllis--to pray that she
might be forgiven that horrid suspicion which, for an instant, had come
to her; and so she fell asleep praying to God to forgive her for her sin
(in thought) against her friend.

And while Phyllis was praying her prayer, her friend, the True Wife, was
praying with her face down upon her pillow, and her bare arms stretched
out over the white lace of the bed:

"Forgive me, O God; forgive me! and keep him away from me--forever and
ever and ever. Amen."

And while both these prayers were being prayed, Herbert Courtland was
sitting on one of the deck stools of the yacht _Water Nymph_, looking
back at the many lights that gleamed in clusters along the southern
coast of England, now far astern; for a light breeze was sending the
boat along with a creaming, quivering wake. In the bows a youth was
making the night hideous through the agency of a banjo and a sham negro
melody. Amidships, Lord Earlscourt and two other men were playing, by
the light of a lantern slung from the backstay, a game called poker;
Lord Earlscourt, at every fresh deal, trying to make the rest understand
how greatly the worry of being held responsible, as the patron of the
living of St. Chad's, for the eccentricities of his rector, had affected
his nerves--a matter upon which his friends assured him, with varied
degrees of emphasis, they we