visit, and her husband, she noted with satisfaction and relief, had said
nothing either.

The little household fell again into the normal and sleepy routine to
which it was accustomed. The name of Arthur Sanderson was rarely if ever
mentioned. Nor, for her part, did she mention to her husband the
incident of his walking in his sleep and the wild words he used. But to
forget it was equally impossible. Thus it lay buried deep within her
like a center of some unknown disease of which it was a mysterious
symptom, waiting to spread at the first favorable opportunity. She
prayed against it every night and morning: prayed that she might forget
it--that God would keep her husband safe from harm.

For in spite of much surface foolishness that many might have read as
weakness. Mrs. Bittacy had balance, sanity, and a fine deep faith. She
was greater than she knew. Her love for her husband and her God were
somehow one, an achievement only possible to a single-hearted nobility
of soul.

There followed a summer of great violence and beauty; of beauty, because
the refreshing rains at night prolonged the glory of the spring and
spread it all across July, keeping the foliage young and sweet; of
violence, because the winds that tore about the south of England brushed
the whole country into dancing movement. They swept the woods
magnificently, and kept them roaring with a perpetual grand voice. Their
deepest notes seemed never to leave the sky. They sang and shouted, and
torn leaves raced and fluttered through the air long before their
usually appointed time. Many a tree, after days of roaring and dancing,
fell exhausted to the ground. The cedar on the lawn gave up two limbs
that fell upon successive days, at the same hour too--just before dusk.