sit on this wide porch, waiting for him in the summer afternoons;
she would go about from room to room on the happy, commonplace
journeys of house-keeping; would keep the fire blazing against
John's return. And in the years to come perhaps there would be other
voices about the old house; there would be little shining heads to
keep the sunlight always there.

"Well, Margaret, do you like it?" said John, his arm about her, his
face radiant with pride and happiness.

"Like it I" said Margaret. "Why, it's home!"




IV


So the Kirbys disappeared from the world. Sometimes a newcomer at
Margaret's club would ask about the great portrait that hung over
the library fireplace--the portrait of a cold-eyed woman with
beautiful pearls about her beautiful throat. Then the history of
poor, dear Margaret Kirby would be reviewed--its triumphs, its
glories, Margaret's brilliant marriage, her beauty, her wit. These
only led to the final tragic scenes that had ended it all.

"And now she is grubbing away dear knows where!" her biographer
would say carelessly. "Absolutely, they might as well be buried!"

But about seven years after the Kirbys' disappearance, it happened