make way for his fellow-humans. After that he had not left her for a second. Who could tell but that she might vanish again into thin air, this time not to be reincarnated? Descartes, who said that the lower animals were automata, could never have known the wonder of a dog's love. Constable followed Stella to the window and snuggled his great head into the curve of her waist. Her arm, soft and precious, drooped about his neck. Constable and the sea and herself had been secret-sharing companions since the world was young. So she stood for a long time by the open window, drinking in the salt of the sea-breeze, and communing, in her own way, with the elemental spirit of the waters. Presently she turned with a sigh, bent down, and took the old hound's slobbering chaps between her hands and looked into his patient eyes. “Are you glad I'm back, dear High Constable darling? Very glad? Not gladder than I am, dear. No; you can't be. You've never been to London. Oh, you would hate it. It pretends to be a beautiful place, but it is n't. It 's a sham, dear. I'm sure you 've never heard of a whited sepulchre; but that's what it is. And London's the world, my precious, and the world is n't a bit like what you and I were led to expect. It 's full of ugliness and wickedness, and nobody can get at the truth of anything.” Still fondling him, she sat on the window-seat. “Yes; you and I are very much better off here. If you went abroad, you 'd be such a miserable Constable. You would, darling.” She looked tragically at him, and he, responsive to the doleful tones of her voice, regarded her in mournful sympathy. Then she laughed, and kissed him between the eyes. “But I do so want to be happy. I 'll tell you a secret--oh, a great, great secret--that no one knows.” She lifted the velvet flap of his ear and whispered something below her breath, which Constable must have understood, for he laid his cheek against hers; and so they stayed until Morris, intent on unpacking, disturbed their peace. Then came a day or two of rest during which she strove to reconcile the irreconcilable,--her dreams in the sea-chamber and the realities outside,--using her newly found love for talisman. And just as she was trying to forget the ugliness of the world, a domestic incident cast her back into gloom and doubt. One morning she entered the morning-room on a scene of tragedy. Sir Oliver stood with his back to the fire, looking weakly fierce and twirling his white moustache; Lady Blount sat stern and upright in a chair. A bulky policeman, bare-headed, stood at attention in the corner,--there is something terrifically intimate about an unhelmeted policeman,--while, in front of them all, a kitchen-maid in a pink cotton dress sobbed bitterly into a smudgy apron. Stella paused astonished on the threshold. “Why--” she began. “My dear,” said Sir Oliver, “will you kindly leave us?” But Stella; advanced into the room. “What is Mr. Withers doing here?”