“No, not actually cold. I believe it’s a goose walking over my grave--you know the tradition,” she answered with a laugh. “Well,” as he remained silent, “if you are not going to say ‘Happy goose,’ like the young man in _Punch_, perhaps you will be so kind as to bring me my red shawl; it’s on one of the chairs in the hall.” So much for his hints and hopes. Wrapped in the shawl, as a preventive against further shivering, Alice and her husband promenade up and down the terrace for nearly an hour, although it seemed to them no longer than a quarter of the time, talking of India chiefly. He told her about his regiment, his friends, his horses and dogs, his native servants, delighted to share his thoughts and experiences with her who was, in spite of everything, dearer to him than life itself. The interest she manifested made him talk of himself more freely than he had done for years, and then with her alone. To her eager questions about the African campaign--his glories, his decorations, and his wounds--his answers were but brief and unsatisfactory; but he dwelt on the successes of his comrades-in-arms with generous and eloquent enthusiasm. And Alice, glad that he should talk to her as of old, on any subject, and hardly able to realise the present brief happy moment, lent a greedy ear to whatever narrative he was pleased to relate. So absorbed were they that the other couple arrived at the foot of the steps unnoticed. “Rex,” cried Geoffrey, “is she cool? Is it safe for me to come up?” “Quite safe. She accords you a free pardon.” “Reginald!” she exclaimed, “how _can_ you say so?” “You are bound to forgive him; I forgave that old lady for you the other day--you owe me a free pardon for Geoffrey.” “Oh, but that was different. She--she----” “She did not want to kiss him, did she?” put in Geoffrey the irrepressible. “He never would have forgiven _that_, be sure!” When the ladies had gone to bed, Reginald took a turn up and down the terrace, solus: “I cannot make her out,” he said to himself as he knocked the ashes off his cheroot. “At times, such as this evening for instance, I could almost imagine that the past was a bad dream, nothing more. It’s a curious thing that my own wife is the only woman who has ever puzzled me. One day she says we are to be strangers, the next friends; one day a cool shake hands, another a kiss. We spent an hour in a fool’s paradise to-night--at any rate I did. I would be an idiot indeed if I took it for the real thing I seemed so sure of once--paradise without the fool.” CHAPTER IV. BAD NEWS. The next day was Sunday, and all the party went to church together in the open carriage. Alice, in a lovely white bonnet, a mass of ostrich feathers, sat opposite to Geoffrey, who, after carefully inspecting her, patronisingly remarked: