Perhaps his wife heard this also, for she turned and put out one arm caressingly, smiling at him in her sleep. He took her hand in his gently and held it. Peace descended upon him, and his brain ceased to torment itself with the future or with the present or with the past. He was conscious of no effort not to think, nor indeed of any unfulfilled desire on his part. It seemed to him that he was floating lazily on a summer sea, not becalmed, but bound for no destination. And before he knew it, he was again asleep. (1899) [Illustration: Her Letter to His Second Wife] She was gayly humming a lilting tune as she flitted about the spacious sitting-room, warm with the mellow sunshine of the fall. From the broad bow-window she looked down on the reddened maples in Gramercy Park, where a few lingering leaves were dancing in the fitful autumn breeze. Turning away with a graceful, bird-like movement, she floated across to the corner and glanced again into a tall and narrow mirror set in the door of a huge wardrobe. She smiled back at the pretty face she saw there reflected. Then she laughed out merrily, that she had caught herself again at her old trick. Yet she did not turn away until she had captured two or three vagrant wisps of her pale-gold hair, twisting them back into conformity with their fellows. When at last she glided off with a smile still lingering on her dainty little mouth, the whole room seemed to be illuminated by her exuberant happiness. And this was strong testimony to the brightness of the bride herself, for there was nothing else attractive in that sitting-room or in the rest of the house. The furniture was stiff and old-fashioned throughout, and the hangings were everywhere heavy and somber. The mantelpiece was of staring white marble; and on each side of this was a tall bookcase of solid black walnut highly varnished and overladen with misplaced ornament. The rectangular chairs were covered with faded maroon reps. The window curtains were of raw silk, thickly lined and held back by cords with black-walnut tassels. The least forbidding object in the room was a shabby little desk, of which the scratched white paint contrasted sharply with the dull decorum of the other furniture.