wn him that way--so dear and gentle and wonderful. He kept
his promise everyway, lived absolutely straight and clean and fine."

"He did it for you, Tony. He never could have done it for himself. He
wouldn't have thought it worth while. Don't tell me if you don't want to
but I have guessed a good many things since I knew about Dick and I have
wondered if he wasn't rather glad--to get killed."

"Yes, Dick thinks and I think too that he let the dagger find him. I
have always called him my royal lover. His death was the most royal
part of all."

Carlotta was silent. She hoped that somewhere Alan was finding the
happiness he seemed always to have missed on earth. Then seeing her
friend's lovely eyes with the heavy shadow in them where there had been
only sunshine before her heart rebelled. Poor Tony! Why must she suffer
like this? She was so young. Was life really over for her? For Carlotta
in her own happiness life and love were synonymous terms. Something of
what was in her mind she said to her friend.

"I don't know," confessed Tony. "It is too soon to tell. Just now Alan
fills every nook and cranny of me. I can't think of any other man or
imagine myself loving anybody else as I loved him. But I am a very much
alive person. I don't believe I shall give myself to death forever. Alan
himself wouldn't want it so. A part of me will always be his but there
are other margins of me that Alan never touched and these maybe I shall
give to some one else when the time comes."

"Does that mean Dick--John Massey?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I have told him not to speak of love for a long, long
time. We must both be free. He is going to France as a war correspondent
next week."

"Don't you hate to have him go?"

"Yes, I do. But I can't be selfish enough to keep him hanging round me
forever on the slim chance that some time I shall be willing to marry
him. He is too fine to be treated like that. He wants to go overseas
unless I will marry him now and I can't do that. It is better that we
should be apart for a while. As for me I have my work and I am going to
plunge into it as deep and hard as I can. I am not going to be unhappy.
You can't be unhappy when you love your work as I love mine. Don't be
sorry for me, Carlotta. I am not sorry for myself. Even if I never loved
again and never was loved I should still have had enough for a life time.
It is more than many women have, more than I deserve."

The bride white day wore on to twili