ing with restoratives,
found her husband hovering over her maid with tell-tale anxiety written
on every feature, while her friend stood at the window looking on in
curious conjecture. Together they bent over the girl's white face and
moistened her lips with brandy. Presently, Lena's eyelids fluttered
and trembled open. The mayor lifted her once more, as if she were a
child, and stood erect.

"I 'll carry her to her room," he said to Felicity, "if you 'll show me
the way."

"It's two flights of stairs," she objected. "Perhaps she had better
stay here for a while."

"She's as light as a feather, poor girl," he returned. "She 's nothing
for me to carry."

"You forget, Felicity," Mrs. Parr put in, with double meaning, "that
Mr. Emmet is an athlete."

Without further protest, Felicity led the way upstairs, and Emmet
followed with his burden. It was inevitable that the gentle clinging
of those arms about his neck, the pressure of her golden head, should
melt his heart like wax and make temporary havoc of his resolution.
Impulsively he bent his face until it rested a moment in her hair.
Circumstances had thrown them together once more in their natural
relationship, both of them scorned, each needing and understanding the
other in a peculiar way. No bold claims or passionate protests could
have won the tender consideration her patient suffering drew from him.

Felicity opened the door, and stood aside to let him pass. He laid
Lena carefully on her little bed and arranged her pillow, then turned
toward the door. It was still open, though his wife no longer stood
there, and he heard the diminishing rustle of her skirts. He stood
looking first at the door and then back again at the bed, irresolutely.
Lena opened her eyes and smiled at him with ineffable sweetness, and
the temptation was overpowering. He took one noiseless step and sank
upon his knees beside her.

"Good-bye, Lena," he murmured brokenly, the stinging and unaccustomed
tears springing to his eyes; "good-bye, my poor little girl. If she
were not my wife--my God, Lena, if she were only not my wife!"

The revelation could add nothing to the emotions she had already
experienced. She was sure of his love; in her weakness and spiritual
exaltation, that was enough. They were now bound together by a common
tragedy, and she knew his gain was loss. If he had made her suffer, he
had brought no less suffering upon himself, and her eyes shone with a
pitif