It was May when they reached New York. Laurel had had eight months of happiness now--almost perfect happiness. She was little more than a child still. She was only seventeen. But she had gained great benefit from her happy bridal trip. Her beauty was deepened and intensified, she had acquired polish and dignity, and there was a sweet and gracious womanliness about her that was exquisitely charming. St. Leon said to himself exultantly that he should be very proud to introduce his bonny bride to New York society next winter. She would be without a peer for loveliness. "I am so impatient to go home to my sick mother at Eden, that I am almost selfish enough to ask you to pass through New York without stopping to see your parents," he said, when they landed. She hastily assured him that she had no intention of stopping. Her anxiety to reach Eden was as great as his own. There would be time enough to see her parents when they were assured of Mrs. Le Roy's well being. He did not notice how deathly pale she was, but thanking her gratefully for what appeared to him a sweet self-sacrifice, accepted it, and she said to herself with a beating heart: "I have still a little respite. I shall see Eden once more before I am banished forever." The home on the Hudson looked Eden-like indeed that bright, warm day when they walked, arm in arm, up to the house. The trees and shrubberies were tinted with the tender green of spring, a soft, warm air, redolent with flowers, fanned their faces. St. Leon looked pleased at being home again, but it struck him all at once that his wife looked pale and wan and miserable. "It is plain to be seen, Beatrix, that you have no joy in your home-coming," he said, unable to conceal his disappointment. "And yet I thought--indeed you used to say--that you adored Eden." "Indeed I do! I love every tree and flower, every tiniest blade of grass on the place. I am very happy in my home-coming," she cried, eagerly, but she had a guilty, miserable inward consciousness that he did not believe her. Her changeful tell tale face had betrayed her all too plainly. They went into the house, and then she forgot for awhile all her own selfish terrors as St. Leon forgot his disappointment over his wife's reluctance to come home. For the shadow of the death-angel's wing hung darkly over Eden! Mrs. Le Roy was yet very ill with a low typhoid fever and pneumonia. Surrounded by skillful nurses and the ablest physicians, there were yet grave doubts whether she would ever recover. The disease was deeply seated, and the physicians could not conceal from the invalid's stricken son their fears of a fatal result. She had been dangerously ill three weeks now--wavering, as it were, between life and death. They would do all they could, the physicians said, but the issue lay with God.