ionate love glow
with new fire. For a moment he thought himself capable of accepting
this change in their relations. The marvellous thought of equality
between man and wife, that gospel which in far-off days will refashion
the world, for an instant smote his imagination and exalted him above
his native level.

Monica paid for the energy she had put forth by a day of suffering. Her
head ached intolerably; she had feverish symptoms, and could hardly
raise herself from the bed. It passed, and she was once more eager to
go forth under the blue sky that followed the tempest.

'Will you go with me to Mrs. Cosgrove's this evening?' she asked of her
husband.

He consented, and after dinner they sought the hotel where their
acquaintance was staying. Widdowson was in extreme discomfort, partly
due to the fact that he had no dress clothes to put on; for far from
anticipating or desiring any such intercourse in Guernsey, he had never
thought of packing an evening suit. Had he known Mrs. Cosgrave this
uneasiness would have been spared him. That lady was in revolt against
far graver institutions than the swallow-tail; she cared not a button
in what garb her visitors came to her. On their arrival, they found, to
Widdowson's horror, a room full of women. With the hostess was that
younger lady they had seen on the quay, Mrs. Cosgrove's unmarried
sister; Miss Knott's health had demanded this retreat from the London
winter. The guests were four--a Mrs. Bevis and her three daughters--all
invalidish persons, the mother somewhat lackadaisical, the girls with a
look of unwilling spinsterhood.

Monica, noteworthy among the gathering for her sweet, bright
prettiness, and the finish of her dress, soon made herself at home; she
chatted gaily with the girls--wondering indeed at her own air of
maturity, which came to her for the first time. Mrs. Cosgrove, an easy
woman of the world when circumstances required it, did her best to get
something out of Widdowson who presently thawed a little.

Then Miss Knott sat down to the piano, and played more than tolerably
well; and the youngest Miss Bevis sang a song of Schubert, with
passable voice but in very distressing German--the sole person
distressed by it being the hostess.

Meanwhile Monica had been captured by Mrs. Bevis, who discoursed to her
on a subject painfully familiar to all the old lady's friends.

'Do you know my son, Mrs. Widdowson? Oh, I thought you had perhaps met
him. You will do