look at him, lest so
doing she should make further demand upon his poor quantity of
strength. A folding screen in stamped leather, of which age had
tempered the ruby and gold to a sober harmony of tone, had been placed
round the head of the bed, throwing this last into clear, quiet shadow.
The bed linen was fresh and smooth. Richard had made a little toilet.
His silk shirt, open at the throat, was also fresh and smooth. He was
clean shaven, his hair cropped into that closely-fitting, bright-brown
cap of curls. Katherine perceived that his beauty had begun to return
to him, though his face was distressingly worn and emaciated, and the
long, purplish line of that unexplained scar still disfigured his
cheek. His hands were little more than skin and bone. Indeed, he was
fragile, she feared, as any person could be who yet had life in him,
and she wondered, rather fearfully, if it was yet possible to build up
that life again into any joy of energy and of activity. But she put
such fears from her as unworthy. For were they not together, he and
she, actually and consciously reunited? That was sufficient. The rest
could wait.

And to-day, as though lending encouragement to gracious hopes, the
usually gloomy and cavernous room had taken to itself a quite generous
plenishing of air and light. The heavy curtains were drawn aside. The
casements of one of the square, squat windows were thrown widely open.
The slatted shutters without were partially opened likewise. A shaft of
strong sunshine slanted in and lay, like a bright highway, across the
rich colours of the Persian carpet. The air was hot but nimble, and of
a vivacious and stimulating quality. It fluttered some loose papers on
the writing-table near the open window. It fluttered the delicate laces
and fine muslin frills of Lady Calmady's morning-gown. There was a
sprightly mirthfulness in the touch of it, not unpleasing to her. For
it seemed to speak of the ever-obtaining youth, the incalculable power
of recuperation, the immense reconstructive energy resident in nature
and the physical domain. And there was comfort in that thought. She
turned her eyes from the bed and its somewhat sorrowful burden--the
handsome head, the broad, though angular, shoulders, the face, immobile
and mask-like, with closed eyelids and unsmiling lips, reposing upon
the whiteness of the pillows--and fixed them upon that radiant space of
outer world visible between the dark-framing of the half-open sh