times--at least to
feeble persons, like myself."

Katherine's smile faded. She looked at him with charming solicitude.

"Ah! you are not well," she declared. "Go out and enjoy the sunshine.
Leave all those stupid books. Go," she repeated, "order one of the
horses. Go and meet Richard. He has gone over to look at the new lodge.
You could ride all the way through the east woods in the cool. See, I
will put these tidy."

And, as she spoke, Katherine stooped to pick up the scattered
chap-books from the ground. But, in the last few moments, while looking
at her, yet further understanding had overtaken Julius March. Not only
the mystery of human love, but the mystery of dawning motherhood had
come close to him. And he put Lady Calmady aside with a determination
of authority somewhat surprising.

"No, no, pardon me! They are dusty, they will soil your hands. You must
not touch those books," he said.

Katherine straightened herself up. Her face was slightly flushed, her
expression full of kindly amusement.

"Dear Julius, you are very imperative. Surely I may make my hands
dirty, once in a way, in a good cause? They will wash, you know, just
as well as your own, after all."

"A thousand times better. Still, I will ask you not to touch those
books. I have valid reasons. For one, an evil beast in the form of a
spider has dwelt among them. I disturbed it and it fled, looking as
though it had grown old in trespasses and sins. It seemed to me a thing
of ill omen."

He tried to steady himself, to treat the matter lightly. Yet his speech
struck Katherine as hurried and anxious, out of all proportion to the
matter in hand.

"Poor thing--and you killed it? Yet it couldn't help being ugly, I
suppose," she answered, not without a touch of malice.

Julius was on his knees, his long, thin fingers gathering up the
tattered pages, ranging them into a bundle, tying them together with
the tag of rusty, black ribbon aforesaid. For an unreasoning, fierce
desire was upon him--very alien to his usual gentle attitude of
mind--to shield this beautiful woman from all acquaintance with the
foul story set forth in those little books. To shield her, indeed, from
more than merely that.--For a vague presentiment possessed him that she
might, in some mysterious way, be intimately involved in the final
developments of that same story which, though august, were so full of
suffering, so profoundly sad. Meanwhile, in his excitement, he replied
less