o not mind."

He was gone about half an hour. Once, some one came and tried the
door, but I took no notice. At last I heard the key turn in the lock,
and he entered. "Did you think that I was long?" he asked, coming up
to me with a smile.

I shook my head; my eyes were full of tears, and there was a lump in
my throat. I could not speak. He had changed all his clothes, and was
carefully dressed in a brown tweed shooting suit and gaiters, but
the correctness and order of his external appearance seemed only to
emphasize the ravages which one single night's suffering had wrought
upon his strong, handsome face. Hard, cruel lines had furrowed their
way across his forehead, and under his eyes were deep black marks. His
bronze cheeks were white and sunken, and a bright red spot burned on
one of them. But it was a change of which the details could give no
idea. His face had caught the inflection of his inward agony, and
retained it. It was there, if not for the world to see, at any rate
terribly evident to me, to those who loved him.

He was quite calm now, however. It was as though the fires of
suffering had burnt themselves out, leaving behind them a silent,
charred desolation. He took my arm, and together we left the room,
passing through the high French windows and along an open terrace
until we reached the gardens. We turned down a broad walk bordered by
high yew hedges, at the bottom of which was a little gate leading into
the park. The air was fragrant with the perfume of violets, and early
stocks and hyacinths, mingled every now and then with a more delicate
perfume from the greenhouses on the other side of the red-brick wall.
How beautiful it all seemed, in that sweet, dancing sunlight!--the
songs of the birds, the blossoming fruit-trees, and pink-budded
chestnuts, the scents which floated about on the soft west breeze, and
the constant humming of bees and other winged insects. Only in England
could there have been so sudden a change from the grey mists and
leaden skies of yesterday. Even in that moment of extreme tension I
could not help an exclamation of admiration as we came to an end of
the gravelled walk, and Paul held open for me a little iron gate.

"How beautiful your home is!" I cried. "How you must love it!"

A look almost of agony passed across his face. It came and went in
a moment. "Yes! I love it!" he answered, "but it is not my home.
Henceforth I have no home. I may well be thankful that I have even