Two trained nurses had been installed. Isabel no longer held her place at Philip's bedside. She was virtually banished from her husband's room. The courage which she had evinced during previous weeks seemed to be going fast. Now she hardly dared to hope. A silent house already took on the atmosphere of disaster. Even Reginald was not permitted to shout in the garden. And withal spring was at hand, seemingly to brighten the whole world, outside of Philip's closed apartments. The sap of fresh life ran in the veins of every living thing in the valley, on the foothills, above in the mountains. The season had advanced without a check, while throughout the Southwest blooming fruit trees and millions of roses prepared the land for Easter.

To Isabel sensuous beauty on every side seemed cruel. Her heart felt desolate. She went through each day wishing for night, while with darkness she longed for sunlight. Suspense was beginning to drain her vitality. She did not complain, but the doctor saw her brace herself against each discouraging outcome of days that dragged. For Philip's last collapse had turned her from his side. She was barely a memory to the man she loved. At first she had rebelled, then accepted conditions enjoined by Dr. Judkin and consulting specialists. Only one thing helped her to endure the strain of a cruel separation.

Philip's book—now speaking to her heart as she knew it would speak—brought strange, proud comfort. She felt exalted that she—his wife—had saved the manuscript from the flames. During a week she fairly lived in the scorched pages of "The Spirit of the Cathedral." And gradually she began to see why the work had been refused. Personal feeling and blind enthusiasm were at last tempered. She could read with a cool intellect. The Laodicean attitude of a shrewd publisher hurt her less than at first. For the fact still remained that Philip had produced something fine. Although he occasionally dropped his impassioned theme to give vent to slight discord, nothing had really been lost from his original motif. Reading between the lines, Isabel detected the natural temptation under which he had worked. Certain paragraphs, all unaided by a magnetic voice and delivery, read too much like his former sermons. Sometimes overcharged, almost vindictive handling of Romish background was evident. In those first weeks in Paris, after he had deserted the priesthood and been cast out of the Church, he had written without restraint. He had said things best left unsaid. Yet, as Isabel read on, she marvelled at Philip's virile touch, at the masterful, dramatic power of his pen. His word pictures drawn from vivid, exceptional opportunity required no literal illustration. Still she studied the sketches of the associate artist, finally selecting one fourth of the cathedrals submitted. Then she read over again the stronger chapters of the singed manuscript. It was late into night before she weighed the possible chances of her husband's book. He had labored so intelligently that her hand seemed to be guided by his own as she omitted paragraphs which undoubtedly influenced the publishers to refuse a somewhat prejudiced work.

Isabel felt free to decide for Philip. His extremity excused her arbitrary action. She was sure that in his normal condition he would agree to all that she had done. When scorched pages had been replaced by fresh ones she would send the revised manuscript to the publisher she had met at St. Barnabas, the one who had witnessed the withstayed tragedy in the mission. She believed that her new friend could appreciate the significance of a book written by one who not only criticised expertly, but knew as well the human side of a great cathedral. Her thoughts went back to a time when Philip—a priest—had outlined plans for the noble church he hoped to build. Then nothing seemed too big for his young city. Isabel smiled, and began to read once more.

Suddenly tears came to her eyes. She put aside the manuscript. After all, what right had she to tamper with her husband's work? From Philip's higher standpoint, painted or stone saints and angels, looking down from Gothic heights, meant nothing to her, outside of their mere artistic value. She saw with fresh dread that Philip was still a Catholic. Early education and his lost mother's devout influence kept him apart from natural happiness. He should have remained a priest, a power in his Church. She remembered how once she had stood with him in St. Peter's—in front of the "Pieta." He had then almost forgotten her presence. The wrapt significance of his expression ought to have warned her. She felt once more that she would never be able to share her husband's feeling for an old master's sacred ideal. And later, when the two were passing the noted bronze of St. Peter, she recalled that she had failed to hide her repulsion for the throng straining to kiss the statue's jutting, shining toe. Philip divined her thoughts and flushed. "It comforts them," he had whispered. "Over here the poor have so little in their lives. What seems absurd to you is for them salvation."

To-night Isabel remembered everything now bearing on her husband's tragic state. Her heart grew heavy with fear, with vague foreboding.