ht. What if it should
be taken away, if she should find she had never had it, at all . . . ?

The idea was so acute an anguish to her that she startled herself by a
cry of suffering.

Agnes' voice behind her asked tremblingly, "Did you call me, Miss
Marise?"

Marise shifted her position, drew a breath, and answered in a hard tone,
"No."

She knew with one corner of her mind that Agnes must be terrified. What
if she were? Marise's life-long habit of divining another's need and
ministering to it, vanished like a handful of dust in a storm. What did
she care about Agnes? What did she care about anything in the world but
that she should have back again what she had valued so little as to lose
it from her mind altogether? All of her own energy was strained in the
bitterness of keeping her soul alive till Neale should come. She had not
the smallest atom of strength to care about the needs of anyone else.

She looked up at the stars, disdainful of them. How small they were, how
unimportant in the scheme of things, so much less able to give
significance to the universe, than the presence of integrity in a human
soul.

If she could have Neale back again, as she had always had him without
thinking of it, if she could have her faith in him again, the skies
might shrivel up like a scroll, but something eternal would remain in
her life.

* * * * *

It seemed to her that she heard a faint sound in the distance, on the
road, and her strength ran out of her like water. She tried to stand up
but could not.

Yes, it was the car, approaching. The two glaring headlights swept the
white road, stopped, and went out. For an instant the dark mass stood
motionless in the starlight. Then something moved, a man's tall figure
came up the path.

"Is that you, Marise?" asked Neale's voice.

She had not breath to speak, but all of her being cried out silently to
him the question which had had all the day such a desperate meaning for
her, "Is that _you_, Neale?"

PART IV

CHAPTER XXIV

NEALE'S RETURN

July 22. Evening.

He stooped to kiss her and sank down beside her where she sat cowering
in the dark. Although she could not see his face clearly Marise knew
from his manner that he was very tired, from the way he sat down, taking
off his cap, and his attitude as he leaned his head back against the
pillar. She knew this without thinking about it, mechanically, with the
automatic certaint