and wall and ceiling were all lined with Spanish chestnut-wood,
while the windows were full of Flemish glass in purple and sepia
and blue. There was nothing to reflect a glint of light except a
collection of weapons of all ages which occupied the wall behind
a bare stone hearth; suits of inlaid armour, coats of chainmail
as flexible as silk, assegais and blowpipes, Bornean parangs and
Gurkha kukris, Abyssinian shotels with their double blades,
Mexican knives in chert and chalcedony, damascened swords and
automatic pistols, a Chinese bronze drum, a Persian mace of the
date of Rustum, and an Austrian cavalry helmet marked with a
bullet-hole and a stain.

Gradually, as her eyes grew used to the gloom Laura found her way
to her husband's couch. She would have liked to kiss him, but
dared not: the narrow mocking smile, habitual on his lips, showed
no disposition to respond to advances. Dressed in an ordinary
suit of Irish tweed, Bernard Clowes lay at full length in an easy
attitude, his hands in his pockets and his legs decently extended
as Barry, his male nurse, had left them twenty minutes ago: a
big, powerful man, well over six feet in height, permanently
bronze and darkly handsome, his immense shoulders still held back
so flat that his coat fitted without a wrinkle--but a cripple
since the war.

Laura Clowes too was tall and slightly sunburnt, but thin for
her height, and rather plain except for her sweet eyes, her silky
brown hair, and--rarer gift!--the vague elegance which was a
prerogative of Selincourt women. She rarely wore expensive
clothes, her maid Catherine made most of her indoor dresses,
and yet she could still hold her own, as in old days, among