She felt timidly for his hand, pressed it without a word. He turned and faced her. They looked for a moment into each other’s eyes, then suddenly he crumpled into her arms, a dead-beat old man, and sobbed like a child. “Oh, Jack, dear! Jack!” she said, caressing the gray head upon which her tears fell like rain. “At last we can be together!” * * * * * * They sat side by side on the porch of the country-house, overlooking the wide lawns which swept down to a belt of trees and the river. Along the bank two young couples were walking in a close and intimate comradeship whose happiness was indicated by the bright young laughter which floated at intervals, in the stillness of the sunny afternoon, to the porch of the house. He watched them as they went, then turned silently to his companion. Betty sat, sweetly placid, a little smile just accentuating the loose wrinkles on the soft face, her eyes looking perhaps after the young people, perhaps into happy thoughts. He thought she was very beautiful as she sat there--and inestimably precious. “Betty darling!” he said suddenly, lifting her hand to his lips, “to think that you are seventy to-day!” She turned and smiled at him, her pale-blue eyes darkening with grateful love. “Nineteen seventy-two, Jack!” she said, softly. “Do you remember----?” His smile answered hers. “Yes, dear. I remember----” She checked him with a little gesture. “Hush! Don’t speak!” she murmured, as though in awe. They sat there, hand in hand, in silence, gazing over the lawns to where their grandchildren wandered with the lovers of their choice, in a quiet ecstasy for which they had no words. Love swelled in them, filled them with the soundless harmonies wherein Life’s discords are resolved. * * * * * * “Hush! Don’t speak!” He opened his eyes. Betty was bending over him. Betty? He stared at her, puzzled. Where were the soft wrinkles, the gray hair? This was Betty--Betty as she used to be all that time ago. Then his consciousness readjusted itself suddenly to its environment. He gazed round on an unfamiliar bedroom where Betty moved with an air of proprietorship. “I have had such strange dreams, dear----” he said weakly. She bent over him again, smiled. “From the gate of horn?” she asked. How charming she looked! He collected his thoughts with an effort--remembered, all at once. “I hope so, dear--please God, they are!” She rearranged his pillow, smoothed the sheet under his chin, smiled again. “Go to sleep, Jack--lots more sleep!” she commanded gently but authoritatively. Without strength or will to protest, he let himself relapse once more into drowsiness. Suddenly he opened his eyes. “What was the name of the man who wanted to marry Maisie?” he asked, as though he had long been puzzling over the question. “Maisie?” She looked at him in blank lack of comprehension. “Our daughter!”