smiling, she came forward to the bedside.

"It was a terrible dream," he whispered--"all those years. But it
was a dream."

"You must dream no more."

"No. Come nearer."

She rested on the bed's edge beside him and laid one hand on his.
The other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered
it.

"Dear," she whispered, "it is Christmas night. And you did not even
know it."

Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes,
and he closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had
been vouchsafed to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his
soul.

After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in
the spell of the dream that invaded her--the exquisite vision of
wifehood--she sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought.

Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender
neck bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue--

"Cecile!"--he faltered--"Madonna inviolate! . . . The
woman--between--friends--"