ms to have buried him in
thought. Presently he shakes off his distraction and speaks again.

"And Barbara? how is she? _She_ has not" (beginning to laugh)--"_she_
has not gone to the dogs, I suppose!"

"No," say I, slowly, not thinking of what I am saying, but with my
thoughts wandering off to the greatest and sorest of my afflictions,
"not yet."

"And" (smiling) "your plan. See what a good memory I have--your plan of
marrying her to Musgrave, how does that work?"

"_My_ plan!" cry I, tremulously, while a sudden torrent of scarlet pours
all over my face and neck. "I do not know what you are talking about! I
never had any such plan! Phew!" (lifting up the arm that is round my
waist, hastily removing it, rising and going to the window), "how hot
this room grows of an afternoon!"

CHAPTER XXXV.

So the king enjoys his own again, and Roger is at home. Not yet--and now
it is the next morning--has his return become _real_ to me. Still there
is something phantom and visionary about it: still it seems to me open
to question whether, if I look away from him for a moment, he may not
melt and disappear into dream-land.

All through breakfast I am dodging and peeping from behind the urn to
assure myself of the continued presence and substantial reality of the
strong shoulders and bronze-colored face that so solidly and certainly
face me. As often as I catch his eye--and this is not seldom, for
perhaps he too has his misgivings about me--I smile, in a manner, half
ashamed, half sneaky, and yet most wholly satisfied.

The sun, who is not by any means _always_ so well-judging, often hiding
his face with both hands from a wedding, and hotly and gaudily flaming
down on a black funeral, is shining with a temperate February comeliness
in at our windows, on our garden borders; trying (and failing) to warm
up the passionless melancholy of the chilly snow-drop families, trying
(and succeeding) to add his quota to the joy that already fills and
occupies our two hearts.

"How fine it is!" I cry, flying with unmatronly agility to the window,
and playing a waltz on the pane. "That is right! I should have been so
angry if it had rained; let us come out at once--I want to hear your
opinion about the laurels; they want cutting badly, but I could not have
them touched while you were away, though Bobby's fingers--when he was
here--itched to be hacking at them. Come, I have got on my strong boots
on purpose!--_at once_."

"_At onc