* * * * * “I’m very tired,” said Edith gently to her husband. “I think, if you don’t want me, I’ll go upstairs.” “Come into my study just one moment,” he urged. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.” Once more the anxiety flashed back into his wife’s eyes. What had happened? What had Helen said? She followed him quickly into his room and closed the door. “Oh, no, I don’t want to talk to you,” said her husband suddenly, and at the sound of his voice it seemed to Edith as if the whole earth changed. In a moment she was held--she was immersed--she was lifted into uncontrollable joy. His arms were round her and his kisses were on her hair, her cheek, her forehead, quick as his tears. “Oh, Edith,” he murmured, “my darling, all these years!” “No, no Horace,” she cried, struggling desperately against his pity, against the terrible tenderness which seemed to drown the weak resistance of her heart. “I was never unhappy. Did she tell you I was unhappy? Why, I’ve been--you’ve been--oh, Horace, Horace! You’ve been pitying me--I can’t bear that, you know--not that--let me go.” “Pitying you!” he laughed; he turned her face back with his hand and gazed into her eyes. “I love you,” he said quickly. “I love you _best_--do you understand?” And suddenly all the sad habit of the years fell from her, the weariness, the dull fret, the days of sober agony--they were as though they had never been. The miracle of love swept her tears down into an ocean of bliss and carried them into laughing waters. Horace pressed his lips to hers; and they were all lost--the long intolerable hours--in the simplification of a kiss. ROSE [Illustration: “Because,” she whispered, “I would take the risk--if you loved me.”] ROSE CHAPTER I The Pinsents never saw any reason why they shouldn’t be modern without--as they expressed it--going too far. They didn’t believe in the sheltered-life system, but that was perhaps because they rather under-estimated their own idea of what constituted a shelter. There were certain risks, of course, in allowing your daughters to play mixed hockey, smoke cigarettes and belong to a suffrage movement (they could attend meetings, but weren’t to throw stones). Still, it was strange how little harm these concessions to modernity had done the Pinsent girls. Bernard Shaw rolled off them like water from a duck’s back. Somewhere between the ages of fourteen and seventeen Mrs. Pinsent presented her daughters with an approximate definition of life. Agatha yawned and Edith said, “Oh, dear! We knew all that ages ago.” For a moment Mrs. Pinsent became agitated. Had they, in spite of the healthiness of their surroundings, come in contact with evil influences? But she was reassured when Agatha explained that they had picked it up from rabbits.