Some months passed, and when they met again, on her return from the Riviera, Morris found his cousin changed. She had parted from him a child, and now, beneath the shadow of the wings of grief, suddenly she had become a woman. Moreover, the best and frankest part of their intimacy seemed to have vanished. There was a veil between them. Mary thought of little, and at this time seemed to care for no one except her mother, who was dead. And Morris, who had loved the child, recoiled somewhat from the new-born woman. It may be explained that he was afraid of women. Still, with an eye to business, he spoke to her about the aerophone; and, so far as her memory served her, she confirmed all the details of their short conversation across the gulf of empty space. “You see,” he said, trembling with excitement, “I have got it at last.” “It looks like it,” she answered, wearily, her thoughts already far away. “Why shouldn’t you? There are so many odd things of the sort. But one can never be sure; it mightn’t work next time.” “Will you try again?” he asked. “If you like,” she answered; “but I don’t believe I shall hear anything now. Somehow—since that last business—everything seems different to me.” “Don’t be foolish,” he said; “you have nothing to do with the hearing; it is my new receiver.” “I daresay,” she replied; “but, then, why couldn’t you make it work with other people?” Morris answered nothing. He, too, wondered why. Next morning they made the experiment. It failed. Other experiments followed at intervals, most of which were fiascos, although some were partially successful. Thus, at times Mary could hear what he said. But except for a word or two, and now and then a sentence, he could not hear her whom, when she was still a child and his playmate, once he had heard so clearly. “Why is it?” he said, a year or two later, dashing his fist upon the table in impotent rage. “It has been; why can’t it be?” Mary turned her large blue eyes up to the ceiling, and reflectively rubbed her dimpled chin with a very pretty finger. “Isn’t that the kind of question they used to ask oracles?” she asked lazily—“Oh! no, it was the oracles themselves that were so vague. Well, I suppose because ‘was’ is as different from ‘is’ as ‘as’ is from ‘shall be.’ We are changed, Cousin; that’s all.” He pointed to his patent receiver, and grew angry. “Oh, it isn’t the receiver,” she said, smoothing her curling hair; “it’s us. You don’t understand me a bit—not now—and that’s why you can’t hear me. Take my advice, Morris”—and she looked at him sharply—“when you find a woman whom you can hear on your patent receiver, you had better marry her. It will be a good excuse for keeping her at a distance afterwards.”