g, lonely, leisure hours in
the golden weather, his silence, his withdrawal into himself, and his
work, hitherto she had not misconstrued, though often she confused
herself in explaining it. Impatience of his absence, too, had stimulated
her to understand the temporary state of things--to know that time away
from him meant for her only existence in suspense.

Very, very slowly, by degrees imperceptible, alone with memories of him
and of their summer's happiness already behind her, she had learned that
time added things to what she had once considered her full capacity for
affection.

Alone with her memories of him, at odd moments during the day--often in
the gay clamour and crush of the social routine--or driving with Nina,
or lying, wide-eyed, on her pillow at night, she became conscious that
time, little by little, very gradually but very surely, was adding to
her regard for him frail, new, elusive elements that stole in to awake
an unquiet pulse or stir her heart into a sudden thrill, leaving it
fluttering, and a faint glow gradually spreading through her every vein.

She was beginning to love him no longer in her own sweet fashion, but in
his; and she was vaguely aware of it, yet curiously passive and content
to put no question to herself whether it was true or false. And how it
might be with him she evaded asking herself, too; only the quickening of
breath and pulse questioned the pure thoughts unvoiced; only the
increasing impatience of her suspense confirmed the answer which now,
perhaps, she might give him one day while the blessed world was young.

At the thought she moved uneasily, shifting her position in the chair.
Sunset, and the swift winter twilight, had tinted, then dimmed, the
light in the room. On the oak-beamed ceiling, across the ivory rosettes,
a single bar of red sunlight lay, broken by rafter and plaster
foliation. She watched it turn to rose, to ashes. And, closing her eyes,
she lay very still and motionless in the gray shadows closing over all.

He had not yet spoken when again she lifted her eyes and saw him sitting
in the dusk, one arm resting across his knee, his body bent slightly
forward, his gaze vacant.

Into himself again!--silently companioned by the shadows of old
thoughts; far from her--farther than he had ever been. For a while she
lay there, watching him, scarcely breathing; then a faint shiver of
utter loneliness came over her--of desire for his attention, his voice,
his frie