edding, of my little live wreath of
sweet Nancies, of our long, dusty journey, of Dresden.

With an honest, stinging heart-pang, I think of my ill-concealed and
selfish weariness in our twilight walks and scented drives, of the look
of hurt kindness on his face, at his inability to please me. I think of
our return, of the day when he told me of the necessity for his voyage
to Antigua, and of my own egotistic unwillingness to accompany him. I
think of our parting, when I shed such plenteous tears--tears that seem
to me now to have been so much more tears of remorse, of sorrow that I
was not sorrier, than of real grief. In every scene I seem to myself to
have borne a most shabby part.

My meditations are broken in upon by a quick step approaching me, by a
voice in my ear--Algy's.

"You are _here_, are you? I have been looking for you everywhere! Why,
the window is _open_! For Heaven's sake let me get you a cloak! you know
how delicate your chest is. For _my_ sake, _do_!"

It is too dark to see his face, but there is a quick, excited tenderness
in his voice.

"_My_ chest delicate!" cry I, in an accent of complete astonishment.
"Well, it is news to me if it is! My dear boy, what has put such an idea
into your head? and if I got a cloak, I should think it would be for my
_own_ sake, not yours!"

He has been leaning over me in the dusk. At my words he starts violently
and draws back.

"It is _you_, is it?" he says, in an altered voice of constraint, whence
all the mellow tenderness has fled.

"To be sure!" reply I, matter-of-factly. "For whom did you take me?"

But though I ask, alas! I know.

CHAPTER XXX.

How are unmusical people to express themselves when they are glad?
People with an ear and a voice can sing, but what is to become of those
who have not? Must they whoop inarticulately? For myself, I do not know
one tune from another. I am like the man who said that he knew two
tunes, one was "God save the Queen," and the other was not. And yet
to-day I have as good a heart for singing as ever had any of the most
famous songsters. In tune, out of tune, I must lift up my voice. It is
as urgent a need for me as for any mellow thrush. For my heart--oh, rare
case!--is fuller of joy than it can hold. It brims over. Roger is coming
back. It is February, and he has been away nearly seven months. All
minor evils and anxieties--Bobby's departure for Hong-Kong, Algy's
increasing besotment about Mrs. Huntley, and