Gentian was smiling happily, with her thoughts far away. Thorold had told her that the picture of her standing in the doorway of that dingy lodging-house in London had never left his memory. "You were dressed in a rich blue gown with turquoise beads, and somehow you reminded me with your sad, sweet little face and big blue eyes of a young madonna. You might have stepped out of some old Italian picture." "And then you discovered I was only an imp," Gentian had said to him. She was thinking of this now and of how Thorold had drawn her into his arms and murmured: "My little blue Gentian—I want you always dressed in blue." Mrs. Wharnecliffe smiled as she noted her abstraction of mind. She remembered her own courting days, and made due allowance for Gentian's moods. Time slipped along rapidly; and then they went for another day or two down to Cornwall. This time Frances Muir was away, and Gentian was relieved to hear it. The house was in the decorators' hands, and work being pushed along as rapidly as it could be in one of the leisurable counties of England. Thorold and Gentian wandered over the house by themselves. "How I longed to furnish it when I was here before. And now we are doing it," laughed Gentian. "Now you must promise not to laugh at me if I ask you for one thing. There is a little empty room at the end of the passage. It looks out west. I want a bit of the house all to myself, and I want this room. I shall watch the sunsets from it, and in the winter I shall see the daylight die away later than in any other room." "You shall have the room most certainly. It can be your boudoir." "No, no, it is going to be my Sanctuary. When I was in Italy, I knew somebody—she was only a girl—one of my own friends—but she had in her beautiful home one little room where she used to go to tell her beads and pray before a silver crucifix. I am not a Roman Catholic. I don't want a crucifix or beads, but I shall have a prie-dieu chair just before the window, and I shall have my Bible on a blue cushion upon the wide window-ledge, and when I'm in one of my passions—or when I feel worried or depressed—I shall run away there and be quiet, and then shall come out with peace in my heart. Sir Gilbert and you have taught me to take all my troubles to God. I do it as a habit now. But I love to have a little quiet closet as the Bible says, and be shut in there alone." "My darling," said Thorold, bending over her and kissing rather a wistful little face, "you shall indeed have your Sanctuary. I only wish it were big enough for a small organ, for I think you would like one there. But I must tell you, I am going to present the little church here with one. I don't think you and I could stand that harmonium every Sunday. I have talked with Dick about it, and he is very pleased. You will be able to run into church whenever you like, and if you would sometimes play for the Sunday services, I expect everyone would be delighted." Gentian's face became radiant.