strength to run away from that appointment. Then it was that
she had prayed that he might be kept away from her. Surely God would
find it easy to do that, she thought. Surely she might assume that God
was on her side, and that he would not leave his work half done.

But when she began to think of the thorough manner in which God does
his work she began to wish that she had not prayed quite so earnestly.
Supposing that God should think it fit to keep him away from her by
sending a blast from heaven to capsize that yacht in the deep sea, what
would she think of the fervency of her prayer then?

The terror of her reflection upon the possibility of this occurrence
flung her from her bed and sent her pacing, with bare feet and flying
lace, the floor of her bedroom in the first pearly light of dawn, just
as she had paced the floor of Phyllis' drawing room beneath the glow of
the electric lights.

She wished that she had not prayed quite so earnestly that he might be
kept apart from her. But one cannot pray hot and cold; she felt that she
had no right now to lay down any conditions to Heaven in the matter
of keeping Herbert Courtland away from her. She had prayed her prayer;
only, if he were drowned before she saw him again, she would never say
another prayer.

This feeling that she would be even with Heaven, so to speak, had the
effect of soothing her. She threw herself upon her bed once more and was
able to fall asleep; she had a considerable amount of confidence in the
discrimination of Heaven.

But before she had come down to the breakfast room where her husband
was reading a newspaper in the morning, she had thought a good deal
upon another matter that disquieted her in some degree. She had been
exuberant (she thought) at having had sufficient strength given to her
to run away from her lover; but then she had not dwelt upon the rather
important circumstance that all the running away had not been on her
side. What were the facts as revealed by the narrative of Mr. Ayrton?
Why, simply, that while she was putting on that supreme toilet which she
had prepared for the delight of the eyes of her lover (feeling herself
to be a modern Cleopatra), that lover of hers was sitting on the
cushions of a first-class carriage, flying along to Southampton; and
while she had been lying among the cushions of her drawing room, waiting
tremulously, nervously, ecstatically, for the dreary minutes to crawl on
until the clock should chime