It had been a terribly painful awakening, and in her desperate flight from the full realisation of the change in her she had broken through the circle which hedged in her life, and sought her escape on the turbulent sea of another, more gilded society. She had tried to intoxicate herself with the splendour and popularity so easily acquired. The Frau Commerzienrat Bauer had received her with open arms, had showered upon her delicate and sometimes indelicate attentions; she had been fêted at the gorgeous entertainments given in her honour at the over-decorated "palatial residence"; she had seen Miles’s expression of contemptuous criticism change for one of admiration, herself surrounded by the adulation of men who, she was told, governed the world’s finance; she had heard the Frau Commerzienrat’s loud voice proclaim her as "My dear friend, Frau von Arnim"—and at the bottom of her heart she had been nauseated, disgusted, wearied by it all. She had come back to the close and humble quarters of her home with a sweet sense of its inner purity and dignity, with the determination to make it the very centre of her life. And then she had seen her husband’s grave—as it seemed to her, reproachful—face, the freezing disapproval of his circle, the mocking satisfaction of her brother; and the momentary peace had gone. She had felt herself an outcast, and, in hot, bitter defiance of the order of things against which she had sinned, had returned thither, where the opium flattery awaited her. But through it all she loved her husband, desperately, sincerely. As she sat there bent over her work, she thought of him in all the glamour of the first days of their happiness, and a tear rolled down her cheek, only to be brushed quickly away as she heard his footstep on the corridor outside. "How tired he sounds!" she thought, and suddenly an immense pity mingled with the rekindling tenderness, and shone out of her eyes as she rose to greet him, like a reflex from earlier days. He looked tired to exhaustion. The rim of his helmet had drawn a deep red line across his broad forehead, and there were heavy lines under the eyes. Nevertheless, his whole face lit up as he saw her. "May I come in, Nora?" he asked, with a glance at his dusty riding-boots. "We have been surveying, and I am not fit for a lady’s drawing-room; but if I tiptoed——" "Of course you may come in," she cried cheerfully, thankful that the light was behind her. "I have been waiting for you, and tea is quite ready. Sit down, and I will bring you a cup." He obeyed willingly, and followed her with his eyes as she bustled around the room. It was like old times to find her alone, to see her so eager to attend to his wants. When she came to him with his cup he drew her gently down beside him, and she saw that his face was full of tender gratitude.