ing in his steady eyes.

"Here's richness," said I, like the fat boy in Pickwick Papers. And I
thanked God for the new energy which had sent me to this lovely city by
the lake. I thanked Him that I had not been content to remain a burden
to Max and Norah, growing sour and crabbed with the years. Those years
of work and buffeting had made of me a broader, finer, truer type
of womanhood--had caused me to forget my own little tragedy in
contemplating the great human comedy. And so I made a little prayer
there in the moon-flooded room.

"O dear Lord," I prayed, and I did not mean that it should sound
irreverent. "O dear Lord, don't bother about my ambitions! Just let me
remain strong and well enough to do the work that is my portion from day
to day. Keep me faithful to my standards of right and wrong. Let
this new and wonderful love which has come into my life be a staff of
strength and comfort instead of a burden of weariness. Let me not
grow careless and slangy as the years go by. Let me keep my hair and
complexion and teeth, and deliver me from wearing soiled blouses and
doing my hair in a knob. Amen."

I felt quite cheerful after that--so cheerful that the strange bumps in
the new bed did not bother me as unfamiliar beds usually did. The roses
I put to sleep in their jar of green, keeping one to hold against my
cheek as I slipped into dreamland. I thought drowsily, just before sleep
claimed me:

"To-morrow, after office hours, I'll tuck up my skirt, and wrap my head
in a towel and have a housecleaning bee. I'll move the bed where the
wash-stand is now, and I'll make the chiffonnier swap places with the
couch. One feels on friendlier terms with furniture that one has shoved
about a little. How brilliant the moonlight is! The room is flooded with
it. Those roses--sweet!--sweet!--"

When I awoke it was morning. During the days that followed I looked back
gratefully upon that night, with its moonlight, and its roses, and its
great peace.

CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW OF TERROR

Two days before the date set for Von Gerhard's departure the book was
finished, typed, re-read, packed, and sent away. Half an hour after
it was gone all its most glaring faults seemed to marshall themselves
before my mind's eye. Whole paragraphs, that had read quite reasonably
before, now loomed ludicrous in perspective. I longed to snatch it back;
to tidy it here, to take it in there, to smooth certain rough places
neglected in my haste.