Gwen lost no time in conducting her projected series of experiments, she carried them on conscientiously, and with an assumption of spontaneity that gave her husband a high opinion of her powers of self-government. As for the results on Gwen herself, she found them nil, she failed in experiencing one thrill, or the ghost of a tremor.

She had an opportunity about this time of judging of the effects on the situation of a sudden danger to her husband. They had driven into the station to meet a parcel of books from London. They were early, and employed their time in watching the goings-on of an imp in human form wrestling with its nurse at one end of the platform.

“What an inestimable blessing it would be,” said Humphrey reflectively, “if the Lord would be pleased to remove that creature. Look at it, biting and screaming like a horse!”

“Mr. Drew says the child is half idiotic.”

“If it’s not, the nurse soon will be—Phew—take the reins!”

She only knew she had them in a bundle in her hands, and Humphrey was off, then there struck on her ear a crash of sound, and through it one thin high shriek and a long wailing.

For a second her eyes floated in darkness, then the express thundered on and she could see a confused mass of men and women bending down over something.

“That distinct definite shriek was awful!” Gwen found herself thinking, with curious composure, though she knew perfectly well that her husband had very likely lost his life to save that of a congenital idiot.

He was only stunned, however, and the infant had got off scot-free.

When he came to her, Gwen was very white in sheer disgust at her own want of emotion, and Strange knew as distinctly as if she had told him the cause of her pallor.

He would not wait for the books, but turned the horses’ heads homewards and set off at a smart trot.

“That amiable infant,” he said, when they had cleared the village, “it seems, felt itself moved to commit suicide in order to spite its nurse; it has been a long-standing threat, the woman says. It threw itself on its stomach before the in-coming train. By Jove! It was a close shave, we only got off by the skin of our teeth!”

She would have liked to touch him, to let her eyes melt in his sight, to make her lips tremble, but she could not for the life of her. She knew he had acted like a hero, but as she had known before, he couldn’t do any other thing when the call came; it did not seem in any way to alter matters.

Then she began to speculate as to what would have happened if perchance he had not come off by the skin of his teeth. She looked curiously at him and wondered.

“I haven’t a notion,” she concluded at last, and she was silent for a long time and very pale.

“Was the game worth the candle?” she asked, as they went through the terrace gates. “You had said a minute before, the Lord would do well to remove the child.”

“Probably not, but when a man happens to be in a desperate hurry he can’t stop to go all round a question. I must go to the stables myself, there is something wrong with Boccaccio’s off hoof. Shall I help you up the steps—you look white?”

“No, thank you—I wish—I wish—” she said slowly; she never finished her sentence, but went wearily into the house without turning her head.

“I wish to Heaven I knew what he thinks of it all—how much he minds!” she whispered to herself, with noiseless passion, as soon as she got into her room.

“Even in this dead-level life a big thing has come and gone, and has left me precisely as it found me.”

She smote her hands together sharply, then she rang for her maid; she dared not be alone, her control over herself was on its last legs.

If she had looked into Strange’s den half an hour later she might have got some idea of how much he minded, but he ate a good dinner and afterwards tied flies with a steady hand, and made several quite decent jokes as he watched her standing at the open window, looking with careless interest at his work.

She wore a Watteau gown of pale primrose, with purple pansies scattered here and there over it; she held a great yellow fan in her hand and stood bathed in the yellow twilight.

“If I boxed her ears,” he thought, “I wonder what she would do or say? Any way it couldn’t hurt her more than those devilish experiments of hers hurt me. I have a good mind to try—if her ears weren’t altogether so perfect I swear I would. Ah, my good girl, you are playing with fire!”

He paused to fix a wren’s tail feather in its place.

“There may come a time, little fool, when I may get tired of this game and resort to active measures, and then you’ll find your bit of hell,

In a moment of abstraction he sang it aloud, and gave Gwen a considerable start.

“Do you ever sew, Gwen?”

“No, but I can, I believe, in a fashion.”

“I wish you would then, it might make you look a bit human.”

“Good gracious! I am not divine again, am I? I thought I had shut all that away with my white tea-gown. Perhaps you would like to call Tolly?”

“Oh, dear, no! You would not conduce to his soul’s salvation in the least. On the contrary, I was thinking you had a marked resemblance to Lilith.”

“Oh, Lilith! I am flattered certainly. I think I will go and get some work.”

Strange laughed, and went on tying feathers on hooks.

“Ha, that touched her up!” he muttered.

When she was half up the stairs she stopped and stamped:

“How dare he say—say with a laugh what I won’t even dare to think!”

However, she was soon back again in her yellow twilight, but sitting this time, and with a big bundle of coarse flannel in her hand that she began to stitch with demure diligence.

“What in the name of fortune is that!” said Strange, after taking steady stock of it.

“I don’t really know, I got it in Eliza’s room—I think it is a jelly-bag, it’s just like one I once made for Mrs. Fellowes, and spoiled disgracefully. I sewed up the wrong end!”

Strange investigated it with much interest.

“My good girl,” he said at last, “do you know what you are doing? You are sewing an old woman’s petticoat.”

He gave a laugh that reached Tolly, as he sat varnishing boots downstairs.

“Bless ’em, the pair of ’em,” he remarked, “and as ’appy together as if they lived in four rooms! Queer, too! as the aristocracy’s mostly gone to the dogs in the domestic line!”