She could hear his voice, as she set about her dressing. He was in his private office, talking with a patient whose deafness caused him to raise his own tones considerably; the closed door between could not keep out all the sound. She felt her invasion of his life more keenly than ever as she realized afresh how close to him her own life was to be lived. Marrying a village doctor, whose home contained also his place of business, was a very different matter from marrying a city physician with a downtown office and a home into which only the telephone ever brought the voice of a patient. It was to be a new and strange experience for them both. She sat before the dressing-table, having slipped into a little lilac and white negligee. The half-curling masses of her black hair covered her shoulders as she brushed them out--slowly, because she was thinking so busily about it all, and had forgotten to make haste. Suddenly the door leading into the office flew open--and closed as quickly. Steps behind her, pausing, made her turn, to meet her husband's eyes. He came close. An unmistakably "doctorish" odour accompanied him--an odour not disagreeable but associated with modern means for securing perfect cleanliness. He wore his white jacket, fresh from Cynthia's painstaking hands. His eyes were very bright, his lips were smiling. His arms came about her from behind, his head against hers gently forced it back to face the mirror. In it the two pairs of eyes met again, hazel and black. "To think that I should see _that_ reflected from my old glass!" whispered Red Pepper Burns. CHAPTER II THE WAY TO ATTAIN AN END Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns stood in the doorway of her living-room and studied it with a critical eye. Within the room, on either side, stood her sister Martha, Mrs. James Macauley, and her friend Winifred, Mrs. Arthur Chester. In precisely these same relative positions were they also her neighbours as to their own homes. Their husbands were Red Pepper's best friends, outside those of his own profession. It was appropriate that they should have stood by her during the period of fitting and furnishing that part of the old house which her husband had termed her "quarters." "It's the loveliest room in this town," declared Winifred Chester, "and I'm going to have all I can do not to be envious." "I doubt if very many people in this little town will think it the loveliest," said Ellen's sister. "Its browns and blues will be too dull for them, and Ellen's old Turkey carpet too different from their polished floors and 'antique' rugs. By the way, Ellen, how old do you suppose that carpet is, anyhow?" "It's been on Aunt Lucy's floors since before the Civil War. Isn't it beautifully faded?--it furnishes the keynote of the whole room. Isn't it fortunate that the room should be so long and low, instead of high and square? Is it a restful room, girls? That's what I'm after."