ffect."

"It doesn't with me. In the sun, I'm sane, and have control of myself,
but nights like this drive me almost mad sometimes."

"Why?" he asked gently, leaning toward her.

"Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "There's so much I might have that I
haven't." Then she added, suddenly: "What did you think of my husband's
picture?"

[Sidenote: Edith's Husband]

The end of the chiffon scarf rose to meet a passing breeze, then fell
back against the softness of her arm. A great grey-winged night moth
fluttered past them. From the high bough of a distant maple came the
frightened twitter of little birds, wakeful in the night, and the soft,
murmurous voice of the brooding mother, soothing them.

"How did you know?" asked Alden, slowly.

"Oh, I just knew. You were looking at my dressing-table first, and you
picked up the picture without thinking. Then, as soon as you knew who it
was, you put it down, found the scarf, and came out."

"Do you love him?"

"No. That is, I don't think I do. But--oh," she added, with a sharp
indrawing of her breath, "how I did love him!"

"And he--" Alden went on. "Does he love you?"

"I suppose so, in his way. As much as he is capable of caring for
anything except himself, he cares for me."

She rose and walked restlessly along the veranda, the man following her
with his eyes, until she reached the latticed end, where a climbing
crimson rose, in full bloom, breathed the fragrance of some far Persian
garden. Reaching up, she picked one, on a long, slender stem.

[Sidenote: The Crimson Rose]

Alden appeared beside her, with his knife in his hand. "Shall I take off
the thorns for you?"

"No, I'm used to thorns. Besides, the wise ones are those who accept
things as they are." She thrust the stem into her belt, found a pin from
somewhere, and pinned the flower itself upon the creamy lace of her
gown.

"It's just over your heart," he said. "Is your heart a rose too?"

"As far as thorns go, yes."

She leaned back against one of the white columns of the porch. She was
facing the moonlight, but the lattice and the rose shaded her with
fragrant dusk.

"Father and Mother planted this rose," Alden said, "the day they were
married."

"How lovely," she answered, without emotion. "But to think that the rose
has outlived one and probably will outlive the other!"

"Mother says she hopes it will. She wants to leave it here for me and my
problematical children. The tribal sense runs rampant i