For an instant Gabriella looked at the sky; then turning her candid eyes to his, she answered: "Happiness and courage. I put courage first--before everything." Her gaze dropped, but not until she had seen his look change and the slightly cynical smile--the smile of one who has examined everything and believes in nothing--fade from his lips. She had touched some chord deep down within him of which he had long ago forgotten even the existence--some echoed harmony of what had been perhaps the living faith of his youth. "You're a gallant soul," he said briefly, and she wondered what it was that he knew, what it was that he was keeping back. At the corner where they parted, he stood for a few moments, holding her hand in his big, soft grasp while he looked down on her. The suspicion and the cynicism had gone from his face, and she understood all at once why people still trusted him, still liked him, notwithstanding his reputation, notwithstanding even his repulsiveness. He was all that--he was immoral, he was repulsive--but he was something else also--he was human. When she entered the house her first feeling was that the old atmosphere had returned, the old suspense, the old waiting, the old horror of impending calamity. A nervous dread made her hesitate to mount the steps, to go to her room, to inquire in a natural voice for the children. It was imaginary, of course, she assured herself, but it was very vivid as long as it lasted. Then she noticed that the usual order of the hall was disturbed, and when she rang, Burrows came, with a hurried, apologetic manner, after keeping her waiting. Mrs. Fowler's fur scarf hung on the massive oak post of the staircase; the cards in the little tray on the hail table were scattered about; and the petals of a yellow chrysanthemum were strewn over the carpet. Burrows, instead of explaining the confusion, appeared embarrassed when she questioned him, and spurred by a sharp foreboding, she ran up the stairs to her mother-in-law's sitting-room. At her entrance a trembling voice wailed in a tone of remonstrance: "Oh, Gabriella, have you been out?" "Yes, I've been out. Mamma, what is the matter?" "I looked for you everywhere. Archibald has been here, but he has just gone out again. I have never seen him so deeply moved--so--so indignant--" Mrs. Fowler broke off, bit her lip nervously, and paused while she tried to swallow her sobs. Her hat lay on a chair at her side, and in her hands she held a pair of half-soiled white gloves, which she smoothed out on her knee, as if she were hardly aware of what she was doing. In her blue eyes, so like George's, there was an agonizing terror and suspense. Her usually florid face was pale to the lips; and this pallor appeared to accentuate the dark, faintly lined shadows beneath her eyes and the grayness of her rigidly waved hair. "Courage!" said Gabriella in a whisper to herself, and aloud she asked gently: "Dear mamma, what is it? Don't be afraid. I can bear it."