t had a clasp which had worked beautifully in the shop,
but which, for some reason, on the journey had caused her both pain and
anxiety. Convinced, however, that she could cure it and open the bag the
moment she could get to that splendid new pair of pincers in her trunk,
which a man had only yesterday told her were the latest, she still felt
that she had a soft thing, and dear John must have one like it if she
could get him one at the Stores to-morrow.

John, who had come away early from the Home Office, met her in that
dark hall, to which he had paid no attention since his young wife died,
fifteen years ago. Embracing him, with a smile of love almost timorous
from intensity, Frances Freeland looked him up and down, and, catching
what light there was gleaming on his temples, determined that she had
in her bag, as soon as she could get it open, the very thing for dear
John's hair. He had such a nice moustache, and it was a pity he was
getting bald. Brought to her room, she sat down rather suddenly,
feeling, as a fact, very much like fainting--a condition of affairs
to which she had never in the past and intended never in the future to
come, making such a fuss! Owing to that nice new patent clasp, she had
not been able to get at her smelling-salts, nor the little flask of
brandy and the one hard-boiled egg without which she never travelled;
and for want of a cup of tea her soul was nearly dying within her. Dear
John would never think she had not had anything since breakfast (she
travelled always by a slow train, disliking motion), and she would
not for the world let him know--so near dinner-time, giving a lot of
trouble! She therefore stayed quite quiet, smiling a little, for fear he
might suspect her. Seeing John, however, put her bag down in the wrong
place, she felt stronger.

"No, darling--not there--in the window."

And while he was changing the position of the bag, her heart swelled
with joy because his back was so straight, and with the thought: 'What
a pity the dear boy has never married again! It does so keep a man from
getting moony!' With all that writing and thinking he had to do, such
important work, too, it would have been so good for him, especially at
night. She would not have expressed it thus in words--that would not
have been quite nice--but in thought Frances Freeland was a realist.

When he was gone, and she could do as she liked, she sat stiller than
ever, knowing by long experience that to indul