n a Catholic!--you might have been a
religious," she said to him one night at La Verna, when he had been
reading her some of the _Fioretti_ with occasional comments of his own.

But he had shaken his head with a smile.

"You see, I have no creed--or next to none."

The answer startled her. And in the depths of his blue eyes there seemed
to her to be hovering a swarm of thoughts that would not let themselves
loose in her presence, but were none the less the true companions of his
mind. She saw herself a moment as Elsa, and her husband as a modern
Lohengrin, coming spiritually she knew not whence, bound on some quest
mysterious and unthinkable.

"What will you do," she said, suddenly, "when the dukedom comes to you?"

Delafield's aspect darkened in an instant. If he could have shown anger
to her, anger there would have been.

"That is a subject I never think of or discuss, if I can help it," he
said, abruptly; and, rising to his feet, he pointed out that the sun was
declining fast towards the plain of the Casentino, and they were far
from their hotel.

"Inhuman!--unreasonable!" was the cry of the critical sense in her as
she followed him in silence.

* * * * *

Innumerable memories of this kind beat on Julie's mind as she sat
dreamily on her bench among the Swiss meadows. How natural that in the
end they should sweep her by reaction into imaginations wholly
indifferent--of a drum-and-trumpet history, in the actual
fighting world.

... Far, far in the African desert she followed the march of Warkworth's
little troop.

Ah, the blinding light--the African scrub and sand--the long, single
line--the native porters with their loads--the handful of English
officers with that slender figure at their head--the endless, waterless
path with its palms and mangoes and mimosas--the scene rushed upon the
inward eye and held it. She felt the heat, the thirst, the weariness of
bone and brain--all the spell and mystery of the unmapped,
unconquered land.

Did he think of her sometimes, at night, under the stars, or in the
blaze and mirage of noon? Yes, yes; he thought of her. Each to the other
their thoughts must travel while they lived.

In Delafield's eyes, she knew, his love for her had been mere outrage
and offence.

Ah, well, _he_, at least, had needed her. He had desired only very
simple, earthy things--money, position, success--things it was possible
for a woman to give him, or get fo