eatest surprise in your life."

Mrs. Harding stood behind her husband. She was dressed with strict
regard to the last fashion. Dressing in each fashion as it came into
existence she used to call quite prettily, "the simple truth about it."
Since the war she called it frankly and seriously "the true economy."
Her face usually expressed a superior self-assurance, and now it wore
also a look of indulgent amiability. Her whole appearance suggested a
happy peacock with its tail spread, and the surprise which Bingham
predicted came when she opened her mouth and, instead of emitting
screams in praise of diamonds and of Paris hats (as one would have
expected), she piped in a small melancholy voice the following pathetic
inquiry--

"Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear in the pine overhead?"

And then came Harding's growling baritone, avoiding any mention of
cigars or cocktails and making answer--

"No! but the noise of the deep as it hollows the cliffs of the land."

Mrs. Harding--

"Is there a voice coming up with the voice of the deep from the strand,
One coming up with the song in the flush of the glimmering red?"

Mr. Harding--

"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea."

Bingham was convulsed with inward laughter. May tried to smile a
little--at the incongruity of the singers and the words they sang; but
her thoughts were all astray. The Warden was here--so near!

No one else was in the least amused. Boreham was plainly worried, and
was staring through his eyeglass at Bingham's back, behind which May
Dashwood was half obliterated. Gwendolen Scott had only just caught
sight of the Warden and had flushed up, and wore an excited look on her
face. She was glancing at him with furtive glances--ready to bow. Now
she caught his eye and bowed, and he returned the bow very gravely.

Lady Dashwood was leaning back in her chair listening with resigned
misery.

May looked straight before her, past Bingham's elbow. She knew the song
from Becket well. Words in the song were soon coming that she dreaded,
because of the Warden standing there by the door.

The words came--

"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea,
Love that can shape or can shatter a life till the life shall have
fled."

She raised her eyes to the Warden. She could see his profile. It looked
noble among the faces around him, a