on which she declined to recognise; surely not that
sentiment of which she had admitted her ignorance to him. Again her eyes
sought the pages, following the inked writing from end to end. What was
she seeking there that he had left unwritten? What was she searching
for, of which there was not one hint in all these pages?

And now Nina was calling her from the hall below; and she answered gaily
and, hiding the letter in her long glove, came down the stairs.

"I'll tell you all about the letter in the train," she said; "he is
perfectly well, and evidently quite happy; and Nina--"

"What, dear?"

"I want to send him a telegram. May I?"

"A dozen, if you wish," said Mrs. Gerard, "only, if you don't climb into
that vehicle, we'll miss the train."

So on the way to Wyossette station Eileen sat very still, gloved hands
folded in her lap, composing her telegram to Selwyn. And, once in the
station, having it by heart already, she wrote it rapidly:

"Nina and I are on our way to the Berkshires for a week.
House-party at the Craigs'. We stay overnight in town. E.E."

But the telegram went to his club, and waited for him there; and
meanwhile another telegram arrived at his lodgings, signed by a trained
nurse; and while Miss Erroll, in the big, dismantled house, lay in a
holland-covered armchair, waiting for him, while Nina and Austin,
reading their evening papers, exchanged significant glances from time to
time, the man she awaited sat in the living-room in a little villa at
Edgewater. And a slim young nurse stood beside him, cool and composed in
her immaculate uniform, watching the play of light and shadow on a woman
who lay asleep on the couch, fresh, young face flushed and upturned, a
child's doll cradled between arm and breast.

* * * * *

"How long has she been asleep?" asked Selwyn under his breath.

"An hour. She fretted a good deal because you had not come. This
afternoon she said she wished to drive, and I had the phaeton brought
around; but when she saw it she changed her mind. I was rather afraid of
an outburst--they come sometimes from less cause than that--so I did not
urge her to go out. She played on the piano for a long while, and sang
some songs--those curious native songs she learned in Manila. It seemed
to soothe her; she played with her little trifles quite contentedly for
a time, but soon began fretting again, and asking why you had not come.
She had a bad ho