Of all this I need say little beyond mentioning the fact that Mrs. Brokenshire, in spite of herself, entered into a period in which her taut nerves relaxed and her over-strained emotions became rested. It was a kind of truce of God to her. She had struggled and suffered so much that she was content for a time to lie still in the everlasting arms and be rocked and comforted. We had the simplest of rooms; we ate the simplest of food; we led the simplest of lives. By day we read and walked and talked a little and thought much; at night we slept soundly. Our fellow-guests were people who did the same, varying the processes with golf and moving pictures. For the most part they were tired people from the neighboring towns, seeking like ourselves a few days' respite from their burdens. Though they came to know who Mrs. Brokenshire was, they respected her privacy, never doing worse than staring after her when she entered the dining-room or walked on the lawns or verandas. I had come to love her so much that it was a joy to me to witness the revival of her spirit, and I looked forward to seeing her restored, not too reluctantly, to her husband. With him I had, of course, some correspondence. It was an odd correspondence, in which I made my customary _gaffe_. On our first evening at the inn I wrote to him in fulfilment of my promise, beginning, "Dear Mr. Brokenshire," as if I was writing to an equal. The acknowledgment came back: "Miss Alexandra Adare: Dear Madam," putting me back in my place. Accepting the rebuff, I adopted the style in sending him my daily bulletins. As a matter of fact, my time was largely passed in writing, for I had explanations to make to so many. My acquaintance with Mrs. Brokenshire having been a secret one, I was obliged to confess it to Hugh and Mrs. Rossiter, and even to Angélique. I had, in a measure, to apologize for it, too, setting down Mrs. Brokenshire's selection of my company to an invalid's eccentricity. So we got through May and into June, my reports to Mr. Brokenshire being each one better than the last. My patient never wrote to him herself, nor to any one. We had, in fact, been a day or two at the inn before she said: "I wonder what Mr. Brokenshire is thinking?" It was for me to tell her then that from the beginning I had kept him informed as to where she was, and that he knew I was with her. For a minute or two she stiffened into the _grande dame_, as she occasionally did. "You'll be good enough in future not to do such things without consulting me," she said, with dignity. That passed, and when I read to her, as I always did, the occasional notes with which her husband honored me, she listened without comment. It must have been the harder to do that since the lover's pleading ardor could be detected beneath all the cold formality in which he couched his communications.