Now, indeed, she and Owen were really lovers, meeting on an equal ground through the very force of their mutual love. Gone for ever were the old doubts and misunderstandings, the miserable fooling of inferiority on Toni's side, the half-unconscious irritation with which Owen had viewed what seemed to be his wife's limitations. No miracle had been worked. Toni and Owen both knew very well that in literary matters Owen would always be superior to Toni; but now that they were one in ambition, one in feeling, one in heart and soul, this superiority mattered little. Now that she was no longer frightened, no longer felt herself despised, Toni could give her natural intelligence full play; and when once Owen took the trouble to study Toni closely, he thanked his gods that he had discovered her worth before it was too late. What he had taken for stupidity was only diffidence. Toni's brain, though not so highly specialized as his own, was a very capable, quick organ all the same; and in the lonely, dreary months of her absence Owen had learned to value at their true worth the precious gifts of laughter and sunny, unselfish gaiety which had once lightened the stately old house. When Toni disappeared, it seemed as though a living sunbeam had deserted the household; and when, on announcing the news of her safety and ultimate return, he had seen the faces of the servants break into relieved smiles, Owen had felt, with a twinge of shame, that even her dependants had valued Toni more than he, her husband, had known how to do. Always, too, the remembrance of the significance of Toni's sacrifice would keep Owen humble before her. He knew now, beyond all possibility of doubt, that it had nearly broken her heart to leave him; and though her tragically childish notion of setting him free by eloping with Leonard Dowson often brought a tender, half-quizzical smile to his lips, Owen fully appreciated the love and eager longing which had driven Toni to that futile step. If Toni had found her soul, Owen too had gained something which his character had hitherto lacked; and in his new humility and comprehension there was the germ, also, of a new content for both of them. * * * * * Toni caught her breath in a sob of rapture as the old house came into view. Everyone about the place, servants, gardeners, chauffeur, had worked their hardest during the last excited weeks to bring the whole place to the highest pitch of perfection; and to Toni's longing eyes the beautiful old house, in its setting of tall trees, smooth green lawns, and brilliant, many-hued flowers, had never looked so eminently attractive, so alluringly home-like before.