“You’d best go, dearie, and think it out. At any rate, you haven’t got to go through the sorrow of the baby business.” Whether this was consolation or not, Olivia could not decide. If there had been a child, and it had lived, it might have been a comfort and a blessing. Nothing in its heredity would have marked it with a curse. But still—it would have been a lifelong link with the corporeal man whom she had not married, from whom she shrank, and whom she proclaimed her desire never to see again. On the other hand, Myra’s revelation gave her strength and restored her courage. She shuddered at the thought of the hopeless lunatic in the County Asylum, dragging out dead years of life. At any rate, she was married to a living man. * * * * * Her first days in Medlow passed like a dream. The kindest and gentlest of women, Mary Woolcombe, Olifant’s sister, ministered to her wants. Mrs. Woolcombe, too, had made an unhappy marriage, and now lived apart from her husband, the depraved Oxford don. Thus, with her hostess and Myra, Olivia found herself within a little Freemasonry of unsuccessful wives. And one day, when she came to think of it, she laughed out loud. “We might start a Home,” she said to Myra. It was only later, when she shook off the strangeness of the dearly familiar, and grew strong enough to venture out into the streets that she found sense of perspective. Not so long ago had she set out on her Great Adventure—only eighteen months. Yet in these she had gathered the experience of eighteen years. . . . Save for Blaise Olifant’s study, the house was little changed. The oak settle in the hall still showed the marks of the teeth of Barabbas, the bull-terrier pup. The white pane in the blue and red window of the bathroom still accused the youthful Bobby, now asleep for ever beneath the sod of Picardy. Her own old room, used by Mrs. Woolcombe, was practically unaltered. She stared into it as she rambled about the house, and felt that she had done right in not dispossessing its present occupant. All her girlhood was contained within those four walls, and she could not go back to it. The room would be haunted by its inconsiderable ghosts. She preferred her mother’s room, which, though scrupulously kept aired and dusted, had remained under lock and key. There, if ghosts counted for aught, would a spirit pervade of exquisite sympathy. As Olifant had promised, she found herself in a strange, indefinable way, again mistress of the house, although she could take no part in its practical direction. He had spoken truth of his sister, whom she loved at first sight. Mary Woolcombe was plump, rosy, and brown-haired, with her brother’s dark blue eyes. On their first evening leave-taking, Olivia had been impelled to kiss her, and had felt the responsive warmth of a sisterly bosom. “I do hope you feel at home,” Olifant asked one day after lunch. “You seem like guests, not hosts,” replied Olivia.