ile
element in a peaceful day; the shade of a dead lover long since
trampled under the domestic battle-ground.

It was almost curious that he had ever existed.

She came for the second time to the postscript and smiled vaguely and
faintly. He wondered if she had missed him.

Yes. She had certainly missed him.

As Marie Kerr stood by the fire in her sitting-room with Osborn's
letter in her hand, she awoke fully, as from a dream, to the
understanding of what was about to befall her.

She was once more, after this year of miraculous growth and power and
recovery, to take unto herself her husband.

The door opened and the maid came in quietly, a teacloth over her arm,
the tray in her hand. She arranged all to please the taste of the
mistress who stood watching as if she watched something unusual.

For a whole year, in that flat, she had been the person whose will was
government, who had to be pleased and obeyed. She had made the laws,
kept the purse, and set the clock.

It had been a wonderful year.

She laid aside her furs, sat down and poured out her tea. Presently
she heard George come in--he now went to school for the whole, instead
of the half day--and the happy clatter of the children in the
dining-room. There was no one to cry testily: "For God's sake keep
those children quiet!" as if the children were aliens--crimes of the
mother.

When she had finished her tea, and had heard the maid come out of the
dining-room, she went in, to romp with her children. It was an hour
she loved and for which she now had zest; she could enjoy it to the
full. They played Blind Man's Buff, in which even the baby joined
staggeringly, and Hunt the Slipper--the baby's little one, which she
wanted to keep whenever it was smuggled under the edge of her little
flannel petticoat; and for the last ten minutes Marie went back to the
sitting-room to tinkle on the piano, while the maid was requisitioned
once more to make a fourth to play Musical Chairs. Then the children
came into the sitting-room, hand in hand, and stood by the piano and
sang the lullaby their mother had taught them. She joined her voice to
theirs with all its old strength and sweetness. And she heard their
prayers and tucked them up in their beds.

Then she went into the room which for a year had been hers and, while
she changed into her soft black frock, the realisation came that she
was again to share it. Her lips curled.

"I won't!" she said to herself.

Why