street beneath them, waiting for him to take her down to dinner--and spoke in the unmistakably firm tone that he so seldom used. "It's time you were at home, Sylvia--we're overstaying our holiday. I'll make sailing arrangements to-morrow." So, by the end of May, they were back in the little brick cottage again, and the two capable servants were there, too, for there must be no danger, now, of Sylvia's getting over-tired. Those were days when Austin seldom left his wife for long if he could help it; found it hard, indeed, not to watch her constantly, and to keep the expression of anxiety and dread from his eyes. He had not proved to be among those men, who, as some French cynic, more clever than wise, has expressed it, find "the chase the best part of the game." His engagement had been a period containing much joy, it is true, but also, much doubt, much self-adjusting and repression--his marriage had not held one imperfect hour. Sylvia, as his wife, with all the petty barriers which social inequality and money and restraint had reared between them broken down by the very weight of their love, was a being even much more desired and hallowed than the pale, black-robed, unattainable lady of his first worship had been; that Sylvia should suffer, because of him, was horrible; that he might possibly lose her altogether was a fear which grew as the days went on. It fell to her to dispel that, as she had so many others. "Why do you look at me so?" she asked, very quietly, as, according to their old custom, they sat by the riverbank watching the sun go down. "I don't mean to. But sometimes it seems as if I couldn't bear all this that's coming. Nothing on earth can be worth it." "You don't know," said Sylvia softly. "You won't feel that way--after you've seen him. You'll know then--that whatever price we pay--our life wouldn't have been complete without this." "I can't understand why men should have all the pleasure--and women all the pain." "My darling boy, they don't! That's only an old false theory, that exploded years ago, along with the one about everlasting damnation, and several other abominable ones of like ilk. Do you honestly believe--if you will think sanely for a moment--that you have had more joy than I? Or that you are not suffering twice as much as I am, or ever shall?" "You say all that to comfort me, because you're twice as brave as I am." "I say it to make you realize the truth, because I'm honest."