On that day Honor had gone over to Mrs Conolly's bungalow, there to remain till Meredith's arrival; and in the two weeks that followed, Desmond had seen little of her--or of any one save Paul. She had helped him in disposing of Evelyn's personal belongings; and at his earnest request, had accepted one or two of her trinkets, the remainder being sent home to her mother. At his request also, Honor had taken over charge of his piano while he was away; and if a touch of constraint marked their parting, neither was aware of it in the other. By one sole distinction he had set her apart from the rest. To her, and her only, he could and did speak of his wife; for the simple reason that in her he recognised a love and a sorrow that matched his own--a sorrow untainted by the lurking after thought, "Better so"; and that tacit recognition had been for Honor the single ray of light in her dark hour. Once, before parting, she had spoken of it to Paul, who thenceforward knew his friend's aloofness for what it was--not the mere reserve of the strong man in pain, but the old incurable loyalty to his wife that had kept them all at arm's length in respect of her while she lived. So they two went forth together on their sorrowful pilgrimage; and, once gone, there fell a curtain of silence between Desmond and those he had left behind. Week after week, month after month, that silence remained unbroken, though Olliver and his wife wrote and John Meredith wrote also on his return; though they plied him with questions, with news of the Regiment and Border politics, never a sight of his handwriting came to cheer them. But for Paul's unfailing, if discouraging bulletins, no word of him would have reached them at all. Honor herself wrote twice, without avail; and thereafter accepted the fiat of silence, gleaning what comfort she might from a steady correspondence with Paul. It was not in her to guess how those fortnightly letters, so frank in expression, so reserved in essence, had upheld him through the darkest and most difficult months of his life; months in which he could only stand aside and wait till the man he loved, as Jonathan loved David, should come forth out of the house of sorrow and take up the broken threads of life once more. Meantime, with inexhaustible patience, he continued to try one place after another, one distraction after another, with small result. It was a costly prescription, and though Desmond imagined he contributed his share, the chief of it was paid by his friend. During those first months he read little, talked little, and rarely expressed a definite wish. He would go anywhere, do anything in reason, so long as no mental effort was required of him; but music--to Paul's utter mystification--he decisively refused to hear. For the time being the man's whole nature seemed awry, and there were moments when Paul's heart contracted with dread of the worst.