She had made ready for the night. Her beautiful hair was in two thick plaits over her shoulders--those shoulders so white and soft and beautifully curved betrayed by the cut of her nightgown and the lacy negligee she had thrown over it. As she slipped out of bed he saw her slim bare ankles, her feet thrust into swansdown slippers. They were like a child's. She seemed more childish and appealing to him than she had before. Ryder felt momentary shame again that he should have been impatient. "It is late," he admitted. "I am afraid, Ruth, you have had a very tiresome evening. This hasn't been just the sort of a beginning to our married life that we might wish." She laughed merrily. "I guess neither of us imagined a honeymoon like this, dear. I used to try to think what you would be like after all these years--and you were so far away, too, John. It--it was like a dream----" Ryder had stepped back to replace the lamp upon the table. He almost dropped it. What was she saying? But before he could find his voice or move from the spot where surprise had frozen him, the door which he had failed to lock burst in and Mrs. Judson, in a state of mind--and of dishabille--that completely shocked John Ryder, entered. A large woman in bedroom wrapper and tears is not a fetching sight. And when she came down the room like a cyclone and flung herself with abandon into his arms, he--well, John Ryder swore! [Illustration: Flung herself with abandon into John Ryder's arms] Not loud, but deep and with a fervency that could not be mistaken. She came within an ace of toppling him over, and he dragged her to the couch and dropped her there--the springs creaking a pained objection to her sudden weight. "Great heavens above!" grumbled the exasperated Ryder. "What's the matter with the creature now?" "Oh, what is it?" asked Ruth from the chamber, and he heard the patter of her slippered feet as she ran to the door. "It's your friend, Mrs. Judson," said the harassed bridegroom with disgust. "She's come in here to have a fit--or something." Then to himself he added: "Why in hades didn't I lock that door? But she'd have busted it in and come right through. Talk about a honeymoon! Ye gods! was ever a man----" Here he was startled by Mrs. Judson's hysterical acrobatics. She was gasping and crying and laughing, all at once. Her state was plainly volcanic. "What the deuce is to be done with her?" he demanded of his wife. Ruth brushed him aside and took charge of the patient, whom he had been trying to hold down upon the cushions by main force. "The ammonia bottle--on the bureau in there--quick!" Ruth commanded, and Ryder ran to obey like a lamb.