of the
scenes at the stable and the cottage on his return, elaborating the
description until Marion's laughter rang above the sounds of their
swift traveling. He was talking to keep up his courage, and to
postpone the speech that was in his heart and that now, after all,
when the time had come, filled him with doubts and fears, and seemed
to him the boldest thing he had ever set himself to do. For the first
time in ten years he was afraid, and doubtful of himself.

The door of the cottage was thrown open by Slim Jim, in his newest and
brightest costume of blue silk. Marion smiled at him as she passed,
for she could not trust herself to speak; and then she was in that
room whence she had gone one day in utter dejection, praying for a
miracle. She stood for a few seconds looking around her, recognizing
all the familiar objects: the bed where Haig had undergone his
agonies, the table where the medicines had stood, the window and a
glimpse of the slope outside, now white instead of yellowing green.
There was a roaring fire, and tea things stood on the table.

Silence enveloped them while Philip helped her with her wraps, and saw
her seated in an armchair before the fire. Despite the color that the
cold drive had brought into her cheeks, her features were still
pinched and pale. Many weeks would be required, a summer perhaps, to
restore her to what she had been before her terrible experience. And
yet she seemed to him more beautiful than ever. Watching her furtively
and anxiously, he endured a raging conflict of emotions, recalling
with a poignant feeling of shame all that he had said to her in that
room and elsewhere, in return for what she had done for him. An
impulse seized him to rush to the door and lock it, to turn on her
savagely, forbidding her to leave him as he had forbidden her to come
to him. For all the proofs he had had of her love and devotion seemed
inadequate to quiet the doubts he now confessed. He found speech
strangely difficult; he went out of the room twice to give quite
unnecessary instructions to Jim; and returned to busy himself
arranging things in the room that obviously needed no arranging.

"Thursby was good enough to go somewhere to-day, and let us have the
cottage," he managed to say at length. "Do you mind if we are quite
alone?"

"Philip!" she responded reproachfully. "How you talk!"

"Then we'll have tea."

He called the Chinaman, who brought in the steaming teapot, the hot
milk, and