ess, and now and then they came back to her
from beyond the chaos which lay between, as memories of home come to a
man cast after many storms upon a desert island. She dwelt upon them and
tried to construct an under-life out of the past, made up only of sweet
things amongst which all that had not been good should be forgotten. She
went for comfort to the days when she had loved Reanda, before their
marriage--or when she had loved his genius as though it were himself,
believing that it was all for her.

Beside her always, with even, untiring strength, Paul Griggs toiled on,
his whole life based and founded in hers, every penstroke for her, every
dream of her, every aspiration and hope for her alone. He was splendidly
unconscious of his own utter loneliness, blankly unaware of the
life-comedy--or tragedy--which Gloria was acting for him out of pity
for the heart she could break, and out of shame at finding out what her
own heart was. Had he known the truth, the end would have come quickly
and terribly. But he did not know it. The woman's gifts were great, and
her beauty was greater. Greater than all was his whole-souled belief in
her. He had never conceived it possible, in his ignorance of women, that
a woman should really love him. She, whom he had first loved so
hopelessly, had given him all she had to give, which was herself,
frankly and freely. And after she had come to him, she loved him for a
time, beyond even self-deception. But when she no longer loved him, she
hid her secret and kept it long and well; for she feared him. He was not
like Reanda. He would not strike only; he would kill and make an end of
both.

But she might have gone much nearer to the truth without danger. It was
not his nature to ask anything nor to expect much, and he had taken all
there was to take, and knew it, and was satisfied.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE summer passed, with its monotonous heat. Rain fell in August and
poisoned the campagna with fever for six weeks, and the clear October
breezes blew from the hills, and the second greenness of the late season
was over everything for a brief month of vintage and laughter. Then came
November with its pestilent sirocco gales and its dampness, pierced and
cut through now and then by the first northerly winds of winter.

And then, one day, there was a new life in the little apartment in the
Via della Frezza. Fate, relentless, had brought to the light a little
child, to be the grandson of t