ded whisper.

Held by those cold, clutching fingers, Milly sat sobbing. Christina
would not get better; and, with horror at herself, she knew that only at
the gates of death could she love Christina and be with her. And,
glancing round at the head on the pillow--ah!--poor head!--Christina's
wonderful head!--more wonderful than ever now, so eager, so doomed, so
white, with all its flood of black, black hair--glancing at its ebony
and marble, she saw that she need have no fear of life. Christina would
not get better.

She spoke again, brokenly. "If you had loved him, you would have hated
me. Now you will never hate me."

"I love you."

"You will not send for him? You will not see him alone? You will stay
with me?"

"I will stay with you."

"And be glad with me again."

"With you again, dear Christina."

"I shall get better," Christina repeated, turning her head on Milly's
arm. But the disarray of her mind still whispered on in vague
fragments.--"It was not useless.--I was right.--I did not need to tell;
you were mine; I had not lost you."

A few hours afterwards, her head still turned on Milly's arm, Christina
died.

* * * * *

Sitting alone on a winter day in the library of Chawlton, Milly heard
the sound of a motor outside. Since Christina's death she had shut
herself away, refusing to see anyone, and she listened now with
apathetic interest, expecting to hear the retreating wheels. But the
motor did not move away. Instead, after some delay at the door, steps
crossed the hall, familiar, wonderful, dear and terrible. Dick had
returned.

All the irony and humiliation of her married life rose before her as she
felt herself trembling, flushing, with the joy and terror. He had come
back; and so he had not guessed. Or was it that he had guessed and yet
was too kind not to come? She had only time to snatch at conjecture, for
Dick was before her.

Dick's demeanour was as unemphatic as she remembered it always to have
been. It was almost as casual as if he had returned from a day's hunting
merely. Yet there was difference, too, though what it was her hurrying
thoughts could not seize. She felt it as a radiance of pity, warm and
almost vehement.

"My dear Milly," he said coming to her and taking her hand; "I only
heard yesterday.--I only got back yesterday.--And I felt that I must see
you. I'm not going to bother you in any way. I've only come down for the
afternoon. But I wante