ant who had come to Hanaford to threaten her,
and who, baffled by her non-arrival, or for some other unexplained
reason, had left again without carrying out his purpose.

It was dreadful to think by how slight a chance her first draught of
happiness had escaped that drop of poison; yet, when she understood, her
inward cry was: "If it had happened, my dearest need not have
suffered!"... Already she was feeling Amherst's pain more than her own,
understanding that it was harder to bear than hers because it was at war
with all the reflective part of his nature.

As she lay there, her face pressed into the cushions, she heard a sound
through the silent house--the opening and closing of the outer door. She
turned cold, and lay listening with strained ears.... Yes; now there was
a step on the stairs--her husband's step! She heard him turn into his
own room. The throbs of her heart almost deafened her--she only
distinguished confusedly that he was moving about within, so close that
it was as if she felt his touch. Then her door opened and he entered.

He stumbled slightly in the darkness before he found the switch of the
lamp; and as he bent over it she saw that his face was flushed, and that
his eyes had an excited light which, in any one less abstemious, might
almost have seemed like the effect of wine.

"Are you awake?" he asked.

She started up against the cushions, her black hair streaming about her
small ghostly face.

"Yes."

He walked over to the lounge and dropped into the low chair beside it.

"I've given that cur a lesson he won't forget," he exclaimed, breathing
hard, the redness deepening in his face.

She turned on him in joy and trembling. "John!--Oh, John! You didn't
follow him? Oh, what happened? What have you done?"

"No. I didn't follow him. But there are some things that even the powers
above can't stand. And so they managed to let me run across him--by the
merest accident--and I gave him something to remember."

He spoke in a strong clear voice that had a brightness like the
brightness in his eyes. She felt its heat in her veins--the primitive
woman in her glowed at contact with the primitive man. But reflection
chilled her the next moment.

"But why--why? Oh, how could you? Where did it happen--oh, not in the
street?"

As she questioned him, there rose before her the terrified vision of a
crowd gathering--the police, newspapers, a hideous publicity. He must
have been mad to do it--and yet h