a sanctuary within the circle of
which neither she nor he had any reason to fear each other or
themselves.

The thing was done; hope slain. They, the mourners, might now meet in
safety to talk together over the dead--suffer together among the graves
of common memories, sadly tracing, reverently marking with epitaphs
appropriate the tombs which held the dead days of their youth.

Youth believes; Age is the sceptic. So they did not know that, as nature
abhors a vacuum, youth cannot long tolerate the vacuity of grief. Rose
vines, cut to the roots, climb the higher. No checking ever killed a
passion. Just now her inexperience was driving her into platitudes.

"Dear Garry," she said gently, "it is such happiness to talk to you like
this; to know that you understand."

There is a regulation forbidding prisoners to converse upon the subject
of their misdemeanours, but neither he nor she seemed to be aware of it.

Moreover, she was truly convinced that no nun in cloister was as
hopelessly certain of safety from world and flesh and devil as was her
heart and its meditations, under the aegis of admitted wedlock.

She looked down at the ring she wore, and a faint shiver passed over
her.

"You are going to Mrs. Ascott?"

"Yes, to make her a Trianon and a smirking little park. I can't quarrel
with my bread and butter, but I wish people would let these woods
alone."

She sat very still and thoughtful, hands clasped on her knee.

"So you are going to Mrs. Ascott," she repeated. And, still thoughtful:
"I am so fond of Alida Ascott.... She is very pretty, isn't she?"

"Very," he said absently.

"Don't you think so?"--warmly.

"I never met her but once."

She was considering him, the knuckle of one forefinger resting against
her chin in an almost childish attitude of thoughtful perplexity.

"How long are you to remain there, Garry?"

"Where?"--coming out of abstraction.

"There--at Mrs. Ascott's?"

"Oh, I don't know--a month, I suppose."

"Not longer?"

"I can't tell, Shiela."

Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely
crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its
blue shadow on the gravel.

Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already;
for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning
perception of her own chaining.

It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise
that she had belong