g
of his own to lean upon. As for my wife, in whose interests I know you to
be honestly solicitous, I will tell you this much: She will be spared the
'inevitable misery' of which you spoke just now!"

"How? Have you decided to undergo a cure? I have heard," hesitated Julius,
"that these things are not always successful--that they sometimes fail!"

"Mine is the only cure that never fails," returned Saxham.

A vision of the little blue-glass, yellow-labelled vial that held the
swift dismissing pang, floated before him. He shook hands with Julius, and
went upon his lonely way.

LXVI

Even the saintly of this earth are prone to rare, occasional displays of
temper. Saxham's white saint had proved her descent from Eve by stamping
her slender foot at her hulking Doctor; had, after a sudden outburst of
passionate, unreasonable upbraiding, risen from the dinner-table and run
out of the room, to hide a petulant, remorseful shower of tears.

Such a trivial thing had provoked the outburst--merely an invitation from
Captain and Mrs. Saxham, who were settled for the London summer season in
Eaton Square, for Owen and his wife to spend the scorching months of
August and September at the old home, perched on the South Dorset cliffs,
among its thrush-haunted shrubberies of ilex and oleander and
rose--nothing more.

But Mrs. Owen Saxham had passionately resented the idea. Why never
occurred to Saxham. He had long ago forgiven and forgotten Mildred's old
treachery. If David's betrayal had brought him shame and anguish, it had
borne him fruit of joy as well. And if the fruit might never be gathered,
if its divine juices might never solace her husband's bitter thirst, at
least, while he lived, it was his--to look at and long for. He owed that
cruel bliss to his brother and that brother's wife. And their meeting had
been, upon his side, free of constraint, unshadowed by the recollection of
what had once appeared to him a base betrayal--a gross, foul, unpardonable
wrong.

Suppose he had married Mildred, and been uneventfully happy and
successful. Then, Saxham told himself, he would never have seen and known
Lynette. She would never have come to him and laid in his the slight hand
whose touch thrilled him to such piercing agony of yearning for the little
more that would have meant so much--so much....

Ah, yes! he was even grateful to Mildred. She had not worn well. She had
grown thin and _passee_, and nervous and hysterical.