"True enough," he replied. "We look up and down the street for it, and sometimes it is on our own doorsteps all the time. We say that we were happy yesterday, and talk of happy days to come when to-day may be the happiest of our lives. Some of us are not born for that ticket, and it's human nature which shuts us out from it. Who knows, you and I may be among the number." "An auspicious thing to say, remembering that I am to be married next month." "Pardon me, I should not have said it. It's like one of your Lord Salisbury's 'blazing indiscretions.' You are taking the line which your welfare dictates that you shall take. You have thought this out for some years, I don't doubt, and you say, there is just one man in the whole world for you. Well, that's a bid for happiness any way. I'll put a motto to it when I cable you on your wedding day." He held out his hand, and she took it. Their eyes met, and he knew that he read her story. "The Temple," he said; "I guess you'll want me to help you open that. If you do, I'll come." "Shall I write to Charleston?" "Yes, to Maryska de Paleologue, who is going to keep house for me." Her hand fell from his and she said no more. The doors of the Temple were already open that the hungry might enter in. CHAPTER II THE SHADOW IS LIFTED I When a woman has drifted into an engagement imposed upon her by years of friendship, it is rare that she has the courage to break the bonds, however irksome she may find them. Gabrielle knew that she was drifting into this marriage with Harry Lassett, and yet her will was paralysed. The baser appeal had passed as a menacing wave upon a strange sea, and all that was left was the troubled waters of the seemingly inevitable. Her love-making had been so many hours of a dead passion, which no pretence could reanimate. She had posed as the fond mistress of a man whom her coldness gradually repelled until his pride revolted. Held in his arms, treated still as the child, kissed upon her lips, all her sentiment appealed to by his ardour, she tried to say that this was her destiny, beyond which she might not look. Hundreds had drifted as she into that desert of the waters where no tide of life emerges nor harbours of a man's love are to be found. She had been tricked by circumstance, and delusion must be paid for by the years.