Involuntarily she smiled, and started to realize that it was for happiness. What had become of the torment, the unrest, of even a year ago? It was gone. She had peace. She was out of bondage. She felt the beauty of the world almost as an intoxication; with the keenness, the freshness of perception that seems granted to human faculties after pain. The thought of her nearly completed book thrilled her with pleasurable excitement. She remembered that Mayne was coming to dinner, and that she had promised to read him the last completed chapter. They would have a nice little time together by the fire, before the theatre to which he was going to take her. Robert was to be out. She did not know where, though she guessed--and it didn’t matter. She drew herself up with a thrill of thankfulness that it did not matter. It was wonderful to be out of pain. The realization that she had refused to be crushed by circumstances, that she had mastered her life and turned it at her will, filled her with a sense of triumph, of exultation. Involuntarily she quickened her pace, as though to make her steps keep time to her eager thoughts. As she crossed Victoria Street, the great campanile of the Cathedral drew her eyes upwards towards the stars, and her heart towards it in gratitude. At this hour it was more wonderful than ever, its outline, faint and purple, melting like a dream into the purple sky. With it she always associated her liberty, her present peace, her recovered energy, all that had brought her out of hell into the light of day. When she entered the flat and opened the drawing-room door, it was to think how pretty, how cosy it looked in the firelight. Tea was ready on a low table near the hearth. The firelight danced over the dainty flowered cups, and darting about the room fell now upon a bowl of roses, now on the emerald silk of a cushion, bringing its color out in strong relief against the pale-tinted walls. A maid came in with a tea-pot and a plate of hot cakes, and long after she had put down her cup Cecily sat dreaming over the fire. She roused presently, with a glance at the clock, to find it was time to change her dress. All the while she moved about in her bedroom, taking off her walking-gown, doing her hair, fastening the bodice of her evening dress, her mind was pleasantly preoccupied. She was thinking of the people in her book, people who were flesh and blood to her. They would be discussed to-night, and Dick was no lenient critic. She wondered what he would think of her last chapter.