of self-preservation alone possessing her, she
became more and more absorbed in measuring the fathomless depth of the
pit in which she had so nearly fallen.

Her one wish now was to get home--to get home--to get home--before Frank
got back.

But the fulfilment of that wish was denied her--for as Agnes Barlow
walked, crying softly as she went, in the misty darkness along the road
which led from Summerfield station to the gate of The Haven, there fell
on her ear the rhythmical tramp of well-shod feet.

She shrank near to the hedge, in no mood to greet or to accept greeting
from a neighbour. But the walker was now close to her. He struck a
match.

"Agnes?" It was Frank Barlow's voice--shamed, eager, questioning. "Is
that you? I thought--I hoped you would come home by this train."

And as she gave no immediate answer, as he missed--God alone knew with
what relief--the prim, cold accents to which his wife had accustomed him
of late, he hurried forward and took her masterfully in his arms. "Oh!
my darling," he whispered huskily, "I know I've been a beast--but I've
never left off loving you--and I can't stand your coldness, Agnes; it's
driving me to the devil! Forgive me, my pure angel----"

And Frank Barlow's pure angel did forgive him, and with a spontaneity
and generous forgetfulness which he will ever remember. Nay, more;
Agnes--and this touched her husband deeply--even gave up her pleasant
acquaintance with that writing fellow, Ferrier, because Ferrier, through
no fault of his, was associated, in both their minds, with the terrible
time each would have given so much to obliterate from the record of
their otherwise cloudless married life.

WHY THEY MARRIED

"God doeth all things well, though by what strange, solemn, and
murderous contrivances."

I

John Coxeter was sitting with his back to the engine in a first-class
carriage in the Paris-Boulogne night train. Not only Englishman, but
Englishman of a peculiarly definite class, that of the London civil
servant, was written all over his spare, still active figure.

It was late September, and the rush homewards had begun; so Coxeter,
being a man of precise and careful habit, had reserved a corner seat.
Then, just before the train had started, a certain Mrs. Archdale, a
young widowed lady with whom he was acquainted, had come up to him on
the Paris platform, and to her he had given up his seat.

Coxeter had willingly made the little sacrifice of