snorted as was his habit when he approved of any one. And she bent down
and kissed his broad wrinkles.

It all looked so homelike and peaceful! Suddenly scorching tears came
into Tristram's eyes and he rose abruptly, and walked to the window. And
at that moment the servants brought the teapot and the hot scones.

She poured the tea out silently, and then she spoke a little to Jake,
just a few silly, gentle words about his preference for cakes or toast.
She was being perfectly adorable, Tristram thought, with her air of
pensive, subdued sorrow, and her clinging black dress.

He wished she would suggest going to her room. He could not bear it much
longer.

She wondered why he was so restless. And he certainly was changed; he
looked haggard and unhappy, more so even than before. And then she
remembered how radiantly strong and splendid he had appeared, at dinner
on their wedding night, and a lump rose in her throat.

"Henriette will have arrived by now," she said in a few minutes. "If you
will tell me where it is I will go to my room."

He got up, and she followed him.

"I expect you will find it is the blue, Chinese damask one just at the
top of these little stairs." Then he strode on in front of her quickly,
and called out from the top, "Yes, it is, and your maid is here."

And as she came up the low, short steps, they met on the turn, and
stopped.

"Good night," he said. "I will have some soup and suitable things for an
invalid sent up to you; and then you must sleep well, and not get up in
the morning. I shall be very busy to-morrow. I have a great many things
to do before I go on Monday. I am going away for a long time."

She held on to the banisters for a minute, but the shadows were so
deceiving, with all the black oak, that he was not sure what her
expression said. Her words were a very low "Thank you--I will try to
sleep. Good night."

And she went up to her room, and Tristram went on, downstairs--a deeper
ache than ever in his heart.

CHAPTER XLII

It was not until luncheon time that Zara came down, next day. She felt
he did not wish to see her, and she lay there in her pretty, old, quaint
room, and thought of many things, and the wreck of their lives, above
all. And she thought of Mirko and her mother, and the tears came to her
eyes. But that grief was past, in its bitterness; she knew it was much
better so.

The thought of Tristram's going tore her very soul, and swallowed up all
other g