Grover was not there, so there was nobody to see that the bride turned as white as a sheet. She had not known, for certain, that his room adjoined her own. "Come in," she faltered. He pushed the door wide. She was on a sofa, in the window, and the late evening light shone through her hair as she turned to him that face which might have been an angel's. It was the face that had stood for him for so many years as the expression of treachery incarnate. Now it gave him the most extraordinary sensation. For the first time in their mutual acquaintance she did not smile. Her look as she faced him was grave and cold. It seemed that at last his repeated insults had quenched her timid impulse to friendliness. The thought affected him profoundly. "I hope you haven't been too lonely this afternoon?" he asked haltingly, standing in the doorway. "No, not at all. Mrs. Ferris came to see me." "Ha! How did you like her?" "She seems very kind." The tone was entirely noncommittal. It seemed to say, "Whether I liked her or not is no concern of yours." "H'm! Did she say anything about taking you out in the motor?" "Yes." "What did you say?" "I said I would rather not go." "You would rather not go?" She turned her eyes away from him, out to the garden, and did not speak. He remembered what he had said the previous day, and guessed how it must have hurt her, if she were really what he was beginning to believe. His next words were utterly unpremeditated. "I'll buy a car and take you out myself." "That would be safer," she replied gravely. Then she raised herself on her elbow, searched among her papers on a little table at her side, and held out a letter to him. "Will you put that out to be posted, please?" He limped across the room and stood quite near--near enough to take the envelope from her hand. "You read what I said about your correspondence?" "Yes." He thought he could detect an impulse to say "Thank you," and the determination not to yield to it. Thanks for the right to breathe! The right to be herself! He saw that she could not frame it. The sound of the gong in the hall below was audible. He turned away--lingered, trying to put together some sentence expressive of his satisfaction that she should be on the sofa to-day, but he found the thing too difficult, and was off with a curt, "Well, good night!" "Good night," she answered.