her rings. The artist, leaning forward
in his chair, looked with vague eyes across the room. And no interval
of time since his return, no words that had ever passed between them,
had been so fraught with significance, so potent in drawing them
together as this brief, wordless moment.

At last Corthell turned towards her.

"You must not think," he murmured, "that your life is without love now.
I will not have you believe that."

But she made no answer.

"If you would only see," he went on. "If you would only condescend to
look, you would know that there is a love which has enfolded your life
for years. You have shut it out from you always. But it has been yours,
just the same; it has lain at your door, it has looked--oh, God knows
with what longing!--through your windows. You have never stirred abroad
that it has not followed you. Not a footprint of yours that it does not
know and cherish. Do you think that your life is without love? Why, it
is all around you--all around you but voiceless. It has no right to
speak, it only has the right to suffer."

Still Laura said no word. Her head turned from him, she looked out of
the window, and once more the seconds passed while neither spoke. The
clock on the table ticked steadily. In the distance, through the open
window, came the incessant, mournful wash of the lake. All around them
the house was still. At length Laura sat upright in her chair.

"I think I will have this room done over while we are away this
summer," she said. "Don't you think it would be effective if the
wainscotting went almost to the ceiling?"

He glanced critically about the room.

"Very," he answered, briskly. "There is no background so beautiful as
wood."

"And I might finish it off at the top with a narrow shelf."

"Provided you promised not to put brass 'plaques' or pewter kitchen
ware upon it."

"Do smoke," she urged him. "I know you want to. You will find matches
on the table."

But Corthell, as he lit his cigarette, produced his own match box. It
was a curious bit of antique silver, which he had bought in a Viennese
pawnshop, heart-shaped and topped with a small ducal coronet of worn
gold. On one side he had caused his name to be engraved in small
script. Now, as Laura admired it, he held it towards her.

"An old pouncet-box, I believe," he informed her, "or possibly it held
an ointment for her finger nails." He spilled the matches into his
hand. "You see the red stain still on the in