“Where’s that magazine I had? _There_ you go again! Why _don’t_ you let the children wait on you?” “I knew _just_ where it was,” said the wife with eager excuse. “Well, it’s their business to know where things are,” said Prescott severely; “they don’t help you half enough. When I go away to-morrow——” The joy in his wife’s face went out as the light is snuffed out in a candle. That evening, as they sat alone together in the cozy library after the children were in bed, she broke into the conversation with a tone that showed the effort. “I haven’t asked you yet what time you want breakfast to-morrow morning. I hope you don’t have to take the six-fifty, it’s so very dark and early, and you never really eat anything, no matter what I get for you.” Prescott looked at the pure outline of her cheek and brow, and the stricken cheerfulness of her eyes. He hardly seemed to hear her words for a minute, and then answered absently: “No; I’m not going so early to-morrow. Hark, is that somebody coming up our steps?” “Oh, I _hope_ it’s no one to call! It would be dreadful when it’s our last evening together. No, thank goodness! It’s next door.” “When I’ve been home five whole days that you didn’t count on, you oughtn’t to stand out for such a little thing as the last evening. It was well I could come—wasn’t it? When I got that telegram——” He broke off with a shudder, and their hands clasped. Their minds traversed the past week with its terror and anxiety, and its later joy—the great happiness which comes from no new phase, but from the blessed continuance of the unnoticed daily good. “You have been in town so much of the time,” she murmured half-jealously. “Yes, I know. It was necessary.” “You haven’t told me yet what time you want your breakfast.” “Oh, any old time. I don’t think I’ll go in the morning.” “Why didn’t you say so before?” She looked at him reproachfully. “Then I would have hired Maria for the day. Now I’ll have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen when I’ll want to be with you.” “How would you behave if I were to stay home all the time?” “How would I behave?” She gleamed at him with sudden sweet tremulous humour through the mistiness of her eyes. “I’d never come near you. I’d make calls and belong to all the societies in the place and not get back until after dinner-time. I’d go next door in the evening and leave you home reading. I’d behave the way other women do whose husbands come home every night. I expect I’d get tired of seeing you around. Don’t you believe it?” The gaiety in her tone flickered and went out, as if she were very, very tired. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know you’ve been considering that offer—_you_ didn’t tell me of it—and you’ve refused it. I’ve been watching you. And I don’t see how I’m going to let you go this time.” “Annie!”