The book bore neither name nor initials, but almost every page was marked. As it happened, most of them were favourite passages of her own. "How idyllic!" she mused; "a pair of young lovers reading Rossetti on a hill-top in Spring! Could anything be more pastoral? I'll take it back to the house and tell about it at dinner." [Sidenote: Mutually Surprised] She welcomed it as a sure relief from a possible awkward moment. "I knew I was right," she said to herself, as she turned the pages. "To-day was set aside, long ago, for me to go a-gypsying." The clear air of the heights and the sunlit valley beneath her gave her a sense of proportion and of value which she realised she had sadly needed. Free from the annoyances of her daily life, she could look back upon it with due perspective, and see that her unhappiness had been largely caused by herself. "I can't be miserable," she thought, "unless I'm willing to be." She sat there for a long time, heedless of the passing hours. She was roused from her reverie by a muffled footstep and an involuntary exclamation of astonishment. "Why, how do you do, Miss Starr?" said Edith, kindly, offering a well-gloved hand. "Are you out gypsying too?" "Yes," Rosemary stammered. Her eyes were fixed upon the small red book that Mrs. Lee held in her other hand. "See what I found," Edith went on, heedlessly. "Rossetti's _House of Life_, up here. Boy Blue must have brought it up to read to Bo-Peep in the intervals of shepherding. There may not be any such word as 'shepherding,' but there ought to be, I love to make words, don't you?" [Sidenote: Shrines Laid Bare] "Yes," said Rosemary, helplessly. She had thought Alden had the book, but had forgotten to make sure, and now the most precious hours of her life had been invaded and her shrines laid bare. Was it not enough for this woman to live in the same house with Alden? Need she take possession of the Hill of the Muses and the little book which had first awakened her, then brought them together? Resentful anger burned in her cheeks, all the more pitiful because of Mrs. Lee's utter unconsciousness, and the impossibility of reparation, even had she known. "Sit down," Edith suggested. "You must be tired. It's a long climb." "Did--did you come up here to--to meet anyone?" The suspicion broke hotly from Rosemary's pale lips. Edith might have replied that she came up to avoid meeting anyone, but she only said, with cool astonishment: "Why, no. Why should I?" There was no answer to that. Indeed, thought Rosemary, floundering helplessly in a sea of pain, there was no reason. Was she not in the same house with him, day in and day out? "She's married," Rosemary said to herself with stern insistence, trying to find comfort in the thought, but comfort strangely failed now. Another suspicion assailed her and was instantly put into headlong speech. "Is your husband dead, or are you divorced?" [Sidenote: Too Late]