Yet she was far removed from unhappiness. Her increasing pride in him, and in his achievement, prevented that. Only there were moments when the inner vision was too vivid; moments between sleep and waking when pictures trooped unbidden through the corridors of her brain; when neither sleep nor effort of will could shield her from that awful visualisation of the dreaded thing, which is the artist's penalty in the day of trouble. At such times, the fear that he might slip out of her life without knowledge of the great fact, that no amount of repetition can minimise, nor custom stale; without knowledge that through his long love and constancy she had attained to the 'greatest creative art of all,' had almost dragged her out of bed at midnight to begin the letter that should carry the word to him amid the sublimity of his glaciers and eternal silences. But always something stronger than fear had restrained her; so that the weeks had dropped away one by one, like faded petals, and the secret that was to be the crowning glory of their new life together still lay hidden in her heart. The cheerful round of festivities common to an Indian Hill season had passed her by; and she was content to have it so. Between her canvas and her unpractised needle, between the companionship of Michael, and of the Desmonds--while they were 'up'--her days had gone softly, yet pleasantly and profitably in more respects than one. For it is in the pauses between times of activity and stress that the still small voice of God speaks most clearly to the soul; that power is generated and garnered against the hidden things that shall be. It is in the pauses that we can, as it were, stand back a space from our own corner of the picture we are so zealously making or marring, and catch an illuminating glimpse of the proportions of the whole. Thus it had been with Quita Lenox. In these four months of seeming inactivity, the large, underlying forces of life had been silently at work in her, touching the impressionable spirit of her to 'fine issues' that the sure years would reveal. Nor had her time of quiet been lacking in immediate results. A completed picture stood to her credit; and a drawer full of surprising achievements in the way of needlecraft; achievements so pathetically small that at times the sight of them brought tears to her eyes. But this afternoon neither brush nor needle tempted her. In spirit she was with her husband, trying by concentration of thought to bridge the space between. But always her thoughts ended in one cry: If only--if only--he could get back in time!