though she felt for me blindly, and I put my
arms about her and drew her head to my shoulder and she wept....

"I knew," she sobbed, "if I came to you...."

Presently her weeping was over.

"Get me a little cold water, Stephen," she said. "Let me have a little
cold water on my face. I've got my courage now again. Just then,--I was
down too low. Yes--cold water. Because I want to tell you--things you
will be glad to hear."

"You see, Stephen," she said--and now all her self-possession had
returned; "there mustn't be a divorce. I've thought it all out. And
there needn't be a divorce."

"Needn't be?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"I can stop it."

"But how?"

"I can stop it. I can manage---- I can make a bargain.... It's very
sweet, dear Stephen, to be here talking to you again."

She stood up.

"Sit at your desk, my dear," she said. "I'm all right now. That water
was good. How good cold things can be! Sit down at your desk and let me
sit here. And then I will talk to you. I've had such a time, my dear.
Ah!"

She paused and stuck her elbows on the desk and looked me in the eyes.
And suddenly that sweet, frank smile of hers swept like sunshine across
the wintry desolation of her face. "We've both been having a time," she
said. "This odd little world,--it's battered us with its fists. For such
a little. And we were both so ridiculously happy. Do you remember it,
the rocks and the sunshine and all those twisted and tangled little
plants? And how the boat leaked and you baled it out! And the parting,
and how you trudged up that winding path away from me! A grey figure
that stopped and waved--a little figure--such a virtuous figure! And
then, this storm! this _awful_ hullabaloo! Lawyers, curses, threats----.
And Stella Summersley Satchel like a Fury of denunciation. What hatred
that woman has hidden from me! It must have accumulated.... It's
terrible to think, Stephen, how much I must have tried her.... Oh! how
far away those Alps are now, Stephen! Like something in another life....
And here we are!--among the consequences."

"But,--you were saying we could stop the divorce."

"Yes. We can. I can. But I wanted to see you,--before I did. Somehow I
don't feel lonely with you. I had to see you.... It's good to see you."

She looked me in the face. Her tired eyes lit with a gleam of her former
humor.

"Have you thought," she asked, "of all that will happen if there is a
divorce?"

"I mean to fight every bi