admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the
hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on when the doctor
came again there would be another.

She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had
vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the
background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had
given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to
the bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was
nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her
dress.

The room filled itself with something that had not been there before,
his impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her
forehead against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little
more to do. Then Arnold spoke.

"You dear woman!" he said. "You dear woman!" She kept her head bowed
like that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. One might say
he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a kind of baptism
for his heart. He spoke again.

"We must bear this," he panted. "It is--less cruel--than it seems. You
don't know how much it is for the best."

She lifted her wet face. "You mustn't talk," she faltered.

"What difference--" he did not finish the sentence. His words were too
few to waste. He paused and made another effort.

"If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the
unfaithful," he said. "I know now. I would have abandoned--my post. And
gladly--without a regret--for you."

"Ah!" Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. "Would you? I am sorry for
that! I am sorry!"

She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive
delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with
the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have
had to do with the forging of those shackles--the price of the year that
had been very valuable.

"My God is a jealous God," Arnold said. "He has delivered me--into His
own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am content."

"No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge your God
with it."

His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. "You
did love me," he said. He spoke as if he were already dead.

"I did indeed," Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands
again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the
affirmation in it.

He str