ce--and
she was not going to do that again. That she found herself alive at the
bottom was a surprise to her, but a surprise that was quickly forgotten
in the constant wonder that Hugh could love her as devotedly as it was
obvious he did.

Women would have shared that wonder, but not men. There was a home ready
made in Rachel's faithful, dog-like eyes, which at once appealed to the
desire of expansion of empire in the heart of the free-born Briton.

Hugh had, until lately, considered woman as connected with the downward
slope of life. He would have loudly disclaimed such an opinion if it had
been attributed to him; but nevertheless it was the key-note of his
behavior towards them, his belief concerning them which was of a piece
with his cheap cynicism and dilettante views of life. He now discovered
that woman was made out of something more than man's spare rib.

It is probable that if he had never been in love with Lady Newhaven,
Hugh would never have loved Rachel. He would have looked at her, as many
men did, with a view to marriage and would probably have dismissed her
from his thoughts as commonplace. He knew better now. It was Lady
Newhaven who was commonplace. His worldliness was dropping from him day
by day as he learned to know Rachel better.

Where was his cynicism now that she loved him?

His love for her, humble, triumphant, diffident, passionate, impatient
by turns, now exacting, now selfless, possessed him entirely. He
remembered once, with astonishment, that he was making a magnificent
match. He had never thought of it, as Rachel knew, as she knew well.

* * * * *

December came in bleak and dark. The snow did its poor best, laying day
after day its white veil upon the dismal streets. But it was
misunderstood. It was scraped into murky heaps. It melted and then
froze, and then melted again. And London groaned and shivered on its
daily round.

Every afternoon Hugh came, and every morning Rachel made her rooms
bright with flowers for him. The flower shop at the corner sent her tiny
trees of white lilac, and sweet little united families of hyacinths and
tulips. The time of azaleas was not yet. And once he sent her a bunch of
daffodils. He knew best how he had obtained them.

Their wild, sweet faces peered at Rachel, and she sat down faint and
dizzy, holding them in her nerveless hands. If one daffodil knows
anything, all daffodils know it to the third and fourth generat