against gray lattice, shut off the
kitchen gardens at the rear. The beds that bordered the paths were
planted to a tangle of old-fashioned flowers, gorgeous in the July
sunshine. There was a subdued gayety about the whole aspect of the
sheltered, sunny place, a {151} look of warmth and home and joy, that
was especially dear to Marvel Charleroy. It satisfied in her some
elemental need.

She preserved a vivid memory, of which she never spoke, of the
box-like little house on Spring Street, her early home. She recalled
that house as disorderly and uncomfortable during her mother's regime;
as frigid and uncomfortable during the reign of her Aunt Josephine.
She figured herself as always holding her breath, as always waiting
for something, while she lived there. It was not until she was twelve
(four years after Clarissa Charleroy left her husband), that Marvel,
to her own childish apprehension, began to fill her lungs, began,
indeed, to live.

It will be inferred that the catastrophe, so clearly outlined on that
April afternoon fifteen years earlier, did, in {152} fact, occur. For
various reasons, it did not take place immediately. For one thing, it
required time for Clarissa to put herself into touch with causes that
desired to be "promoted" by her silver tongue and wistful, winning
ways. Then, too, there were moments when she wavered. So long as Paul
could maintain that pose, achieved with great effort, of good-natured,
sarcastic scoffing at their tragedy, Clarissa herself did not believe
in it wholly. Sometimes they drew very near together. A debonair,
indifferent Paul who jested about her "calling" attracted her. A Paul
who could demand cheerfully as he took his second cup of coffee,
"Well, Clarissa, am I the Tyrant Man this morning?" was not unlikely
to elicit the answer, "No, not to-day, Paul. You're just own folks
to-day." But a Paul who had heard the wolf howling at the door {153}
of his heart, who looked at her with eyes in which she saw fear and
the shadow of a broken life, repelled her utterly. Women are reputed
to be soft-hearted. Paul Charleroy, musing upon his own predicament in
those days, remembered this age-long superstition with wonder.

In spite of various respites, a catastrophe which is latent in a
temperament will, some day, come to pass unless, of course, the owner
of the temperament decides to be absolute master of himself. Nothing
was further from Clarissa's thought than to recapture her married
h