speech! It was true when it was uttered; but how soon the hour belied it!

As he obediently closed his eyes, his hand stole out from the side of the
covers and felt for mine. I gave it and as he kept it his thought seemed
to me to flow into my brain. I could feel him, as it were, thinking of his
wife, loving her through all the deeps of his still nature with seven--
yes, seventy--times the passion that I fancied would ever be possible to
that young girl I had seen a few hours earlier showing her heart to the
world, with falling hair and rending sobs. As he lay thus trying to court
back his dream of perfect roses, I had my delight in knowing he would
never dream-what Senda saw so plainly, yet with such faultless modesty--
that all true love draws its strength and fragrance from the riches not of
the loved one's, but of the lover's soul.

His grasp had begun to loosen, when I thought I heard from the wife's room
a sudden sound that made my mind flash back to the saucer I had failed to
bring in. It was as though the old-fashioned, unweighted window-sash,
having been slightly lifted, had slipped from the fingers and fallen shut.
I hearkened, and the next instant there came softly searching through
doors, through walls, through my own flesh and blood, a long half-wailing
sigh. Fontenette tightened on my hand, then dropped it, and opening his
eyes sharply, asked, "What was that?"

"What was what, old fellow?" I pretended to have been more than half
asleep myself.

"Did I only dream I 'eard it, thad noise?"

"That isn't a hard thing to do in your condition," I replied, with my
serenest smile, and again he closed his eyes. Yet for two or three minutes