in happy moments burned through their
veil of thought.

He laid his hand on his wife's arm, and drawing her toward a table
spread out the blueprint before her.

"You haven't seen this, have you?" he said.

She looked down at the plan without answering, reading in the left-hand
corner the architect's conventional inscription: "Swimming-tank and
gymnasium designed for Mrs. John Amherst."

Amherst looked up, perhaps struck by her silence.

"But perhaps you _have_ seen it--at Lynbrook? It must have been done
while you were there."

The quickened throb of her blood rushed to her brain like a signal.
"Speak--speak now!" the signal commanded.

Justine continued to look fixedly at the plan. "Yes, I have seen it,"
she said at length.

"At Lynbrook?"

"At Lynbrook."

"_She_ showed it to you, I suppose--while I was away?"

Justine hesitated again. "Yes, while you were away."

"And did she tell you anything about it, go into details about her
wishes, her intentions?"

Now was the moment--now! As her lips parted she looked up at her
husband. The illumination still lingered on his face--and it was the
face she loved. He was waiting eagerly for her next word.

"No, I heard no details. I merely saw the plan lying there."

She saw his look of disappointment. "She never told you about it?"

"No--she never told me."

It was best so, after all. She understood that now. It was now at last
that she was paying her full price.

Amherst rolled up the plan with a sigh and pushed it into the drawer of
the table. It struck her that he too had the look of one who has laid a
ghost. He turned to her and drew her hand through his arm.

"You're tired, dear. You ought to have driven back with the others," he
said.

"No, I would rather stay with you."

"You want to drain this good day to the dregs, as I do?"

"Yes," she murmured, drawing her hand away.

"It _is_ a good day, isn't it?" he continued, looking about him at the
white-panelled walls, the vista of large bright rooms seen through the
folding doors. "I feel as if we had reached a height, somehow--a height
where one might pause and draw breath for the next climb. Don't you feel
that too, Justine?"

"Yes--I feel it."

"Do you remember once, long ago--one day when you and I and Cicely went
on a picnic to hunt orchids--how we got talking of the one best moment
in life--the moment when one wanted most to stop the clock?"

The colour rose in her face while he spoke.