led up to. Fantastically improbable as they had seemed, all her
previsions had come true. If there were certain links in the
chain that Lansing had never been able to put his hand on,
certain arrangements and contrivances that still needed further
elucidation, why, he was lazily resolved to clear them up with
her some day; and meanwhile it was worth all the past might have
cost, and every penalty the future might exact of him, just to
be sitting here in the silence and sweetness, her sleeping head
on his knee, clasped in his joy as the hushed world was clasped
in moonlight.

He stooped down and kissed her. "Wake up," he whispered, "it's
bed-time."



III.

THEIR month of Como was within a few hours of ending. Till the
last moment they had hoped for a reprieve; but the accommodating
Streffy had been unable to put the villa at their disposal for a
longer time, since he had had the luck to let it for a thumping
price to some beastly bouncers who insisted on taking possession
at the date agreed on.

Lansing, leaving Susy's side at dawn, had gone down to the lake
for a last plunge; and swimming homeward through the crystal
light he looked up at the garden brimming with flowers, the long
low house with the cypress wood above it, and the window behind
which his wife still slept. The month had been exquisite, and