shion as
Thou seest well, and afterwards endure with them through all the
existences to be. O Giver of Life and Love Eternal, hear this, the
solemn marriage prayer of Godfrey and of Isobel."

Then she rose and with one long look, left him, seeming to his eyes no
more a woman, as ten thousand women are, but a very Fire of spiritual
love incarnate in a veil of flesh.

CHAPTER XX

ORDERS

Godfrey and his wife never went to Cornwall after all, for on Christmas
Day the weather turned so bad and travelling was so difficult that they
determined to stop where they were for a few days.

As for them the roof of this London hotel had become synonymous with
that of the crystal dome of heaven, this did not matter in the least.
There they sat in their hideous, over-gilded, private sitting-room, or,
when the weather was clear enough, went for walks in the Park, and once
to the South Kensington Museum, where they enjoyed themselves very
thoroughly.

It was on the fourth morning after their marriage that the blow fell.
Godfrey had waked early, and lay watching his wife at his side. The
grey light from the uncurtained window, which they had opened to air
the over-heated room, revealed her in outline but not in detail and
made her fine face mysterious, framed as it was in her yellow hair. He
watched it with a kind of rapture, till at length she sighed and
stirred, then began to murmur in her sleep.

"My darling," she whispered, "oh! my darling, how have I lived without
you? Well, that is over, since alive or dead we can never be parted
more, not really--not really!"

Then she opened her grey eyes and stretched out her arms to receive
him, and he was glad, for he seemed to be listening to that which he
was not meant to hear.

A little later there came a knocking at the door, and a page boy's
squeaky voice without said:

"Telegram for you, Sir."

Godfrey called to him to put it down, but Isobel turned pale and
shivered.

"What can it be?" she said, clasping him. "No one knows our address."

"Oh, yes, they do," he answered. "You forget you telephoned to the Hall
yesterday afternoon about the hospital business you had forgotten and
gave our number, which would be quite enough."

"So I did, like a fool," she exclaimed, looking as though she were
going to cry.

"Don't be frightened, dear," he said. "I dare say it is nothing. You
see we have no one to lose."

"No, no, I feel sure it is a great deal and--we have eac