ad quietly retreated and
indulged in his usual nap. A dainty tea equipage had been brought in,
and she had roused herself to prepare it with her own hands, and it
seemed to him that this little touch of domesticity had been the one
thing wanted to make the picture perfect. There had been a momentary
silence then, and she had found herself asking him questions.

"Do you never feel that you would like to be back in the world again?"
she asked. "Yours is a very lonely life!"

"I do not often find it so," he answered, with his eyes fixed upon the
fire. "One's books, and the thoughts one gets from them, are sufficient
companions."

"But they are not human ones, and man is human. Do you think a lonely
life quite healthy--mentally healthy, I mean?"

"It should be the healthiest of all lives. It is only in theory that
solitude is morbid. If you knew more of the world, Miss Thurwell, you
would understand something of its cramping influence upon all
independent thought. I am not a pessimist--at least, I try not to be. I
do not wish to say that there is more badness than goodness in the
world, but there is certainly more littleness than greatness. To live in
any manner of society without imbibing a certain form of selfishness is
difficult; to do so and to taste the full sweetness of the life that
never dies is impossible!"

"But there must be some exceptions!" she said hesitatingly. "If people
care for one another, and care for the same things----"

He shook his head.

"People never do care for one another. Life is so full nowadays, there
are so many things to care about, that any concentration of the
affections is impossible. Love is the derision of the modern world. It
has not even the respect one pays to the antique."

For several minutes there was deep silence. A piece of burning wood
tumbled off from the log and fell upon the tiles, where it lay with its
delicate blue smoke curling upward into the room, laden with the pungent
odor of the pine. She moved her feet, and there was the slight rustling
of her skirts. No other sound broke the stillness which they both
remembered for long afterwards--the stillness before the storm.

Suddenly it came to an end. There was a sound of doors being quickly
opened and shut, voices in the hall, and then a light, firm tread,
crossing the main portion of the room. They both glanced toward the
curtains, and there was a second's expectancy. Then they were thrown on
one side with a has