t the difficulty."

"I'm delighted to hear it! The Lahore week shall be my Christmas
present to her and you; and there's an end of _that_ dilemma."

"Thank you, Paul," Desmond said simply. "I'll tell her to-night. Come
over to dinner," he added as they parted. "The Ollivers will be there;
and I may stand in need of protection."

The sound of music greeted him from the hall, and he found Honor
playing alone in the dusk.

"Please go on," he said, as she rose to greet him. "It's what I want
more than anything at this moment."

The girl flushed softly, and turned back to the instrument. Any one
who had heard her playing before Desmond came in, could scarcely have
failed to note the subtle change in its quality. She made of her music
a voice of sympathy, evolved from the heart of the great German
masters; whose satisfying strength and simplicity--so far removed from
the restless questioning of our later day--were surely the outcome of
a large faith in God; of the certainty that effort, aspiration, and
endurance, despite their seeming futility, can never fail to be very
much worth while.

In this fashion Honor reassured her friend to his complete
comprehension; and while he sat listening and watching her in the half
light, he fell to wondering how it came about that this girl, with her
generous warmth of heart, her twofold beauty of the spirit and the
flesh, should still be finding her central interest in the lives of
others rather than in her own. Was the inevitable awakening over and
done with? Or was it yet to come? He inclined to the latter view, and
the thought of Paul sprang to his mind. Here, surely, was the one
woman worthy of his friend. But then, Paul held strong views about
marriage, and it was almost impossible to picture the good fellow in
love.

Nevertheless, the good fellow was, at that time, more profoundly, more
irrevocably in love than Desmond himself had ever been,
notwithstanding the fact of his marriage. His theories had proved mere
dust in the balance when weighed against his strong, simple-hearted
love for Honor Meredith. Yet the passing of nine months found him no
nearer to open recantation. If a man has learnt nothing else by the
time he is thirty-eight, he has usually gained possession of his soul,
and at no stage of his life had Paul shown the least talent for taking
a situation by storm. In the attainment of Honor's friendship, this
most modest of men felt himself blest beyond desert; and