d herself to speak of Theo more often than she had done
hitherto; for she now understood the reason of her instinctive
reserve where he was concerned; and the mere effort of breaking
through it was a help. She succeeded in talking to him also, if with
less frankness, still with something of her old simplicity and ease;
and in playing his favourite preludes and sonatas, even though they
stirred unsounded depths of emotion, and made the burden laid upon her
shoulders seem too heavy to be borne.

One habit alone seriously hindered her. Her spirit of candour--which
was less a habit than an elemental essence--chafed against the barrier
between her and those she loved. For she now found herself constrained
to avoid the too discerning eyes of Paul and Mrs Conolly, and, above
all, of Theo himself. Men and women whose spirit hibernates more or
less permanently in its temple of flesh have small knowledge of the
joy of such wordless intercourse; such flashes of direct speech
between soul and soul; but Honor felt the lack of it keenly. She
experienced, for the first time in her life, that loneliness of heart
which is an integral part of all great sorrow.

But when things are at their worst we must needs eat and sleep, and
find some degree of satisfaction in both. Honor was young, practical,
healthy, and her days were too well filled to allow of time for
brooding; nor had she the smallest leaning toward that unprofitable
occupation. She sought and found refuge from her clamorous Ego,--never
more clamorous than at the first awakening of love,--in concentrating
thought and purpose upon Evelyn; in bracing her to meet this first
real demand upon her courage in a manner befitting Theo Desmond's
wife.

And she reaped her measure of reward. Evelyn bore herself bravely on
the whole. Theo's manifest approbation acted as a subconscious pillar
of strength. But on the last day of all, when the strain of standing
morally on tiptoe was already producing its inevitable effect, an
unlooked-for shock brought her back to earth with the rush of a
wounded bird.

The troops were to march at dawn; and in the evening it transpired
that Theo intended to dine at Mess, returning, in all probability,
just in time to change and ride down to the Lines. The programme was
so entirely a matter of course on the eve of an expedition, and his
squadron had absorbed so much of his attention, that he had forgotten
to speak of the matter earlier; and the discovery w