Bending over the form of his lost wife, Henry Callandar forgot Esther. His mind, careful of its sanity, removed her instantly from the possibility of thought. She was gone—whisked away by some swift genie and, with her, vanished the world of blue and gold inhabited by lovers.

There remained only that white, faded face among the daisies. With careful hands he removed the crushed hat and loosened the collar at the neck. It was Molly. Not a doubt of that. Not Molly as he remembered her but Molly from whom the years had taken more than their toll, giving but little in return. He could not think beyond this fact, as yet. And he felt nothing, nothing at all. Both heart and mind lay mercifully numb under the anaesthetic of the shock.

Deftly he did the few things necessary to restore the swooning woman, noting with a doctor's eye the first faint flush of pink under the dead white nails, then the flutter of breath through the parted lips and the slow unclosing of the hazel eyes which, at sight of him, sprang widely, vividly into life.

"Harry!" The name was the merest whisper and held a quiver of fear. He remembered, stolidly, that just so had she whispered it upon the evening of their hurried marriage.

"Yes, Molly. It is all right. Don't be frightened!"—Just so had he soothed her.

She closed her eyes a moment while strength came back and then, raising herself, slipped out of his arms with a little breathless movement of avoidance. She seemed indeed to cower away and the fear in her eyes hurt him with a physical pang. Instinctively he put out his hand to reassure her, repeating his entreaty that she should not be frightened.

"But I am frightened!" Her voice was hoarse. "You terrified me! You had no right to come like that. You should have let me know—sent word—or—or something."

"Sent word?" He repeated the words, in a dazed way. "How could I? How could I know?"

"How could you come if you didn't know?" Already the miracle of readjustment which in women is so marvellously quick, had given back to Mary Coombe something of her natural manner. Besides, she had always known that some day he might find her—if he cared to look.

"Why should you come at all?" she flashed, raising defiant eyes. "The time to come was long ago."

"I did come." Callandar spoke slowly. "I came—" he paused, for how could he tell her that his coming had been to a house of death.

The bald answer, the strangeness of his gaze stirred her fear again. For a moment they stared at each other, each busy with the shifting puzzle. Then her quicker intuition abandoned the mystery of the present meeting to straighten out the past.

"Then you followed the letter?"

"Yes, I followed the letter."

"And you saw her—my mother?"

"Yes, I saw your mother."

Impulsively he moved toward her but she shrank back, plainly terrified.

"Don't! I didn't know. I swear I did not know. I never saw the letter—until last night. And I don't understand. What—what did my mother tell you when you came?"

"There was only one thing which would have kept me from you, Molly."

"Only one thing? What?" she almost whispered.

"She told me you were dead."

The flash of understanding on her face showed that she, at least, had shifted part of the puzzle into place.

"I see now," she said slowly, "I have wondered ever since I saw the letter. But I did not think she would go that far. Yet it was the simplest way. There was no date on the letter—but I guessed that it must have come too late."

"Too late?"

"Yes, or she would never have dared. Besides she might not have wanted to. She didn't know. I never had the courage to tell her. But if the letter had come in time—"

She faltered, growing confused under his intense gaze.

"In time for what?" he prompted patiently.

She brushed the question aside.

"Did you believe her when she said that?"

"Yes. Why should I have doubted? It seemed to be the end. I fainted on the doorstep. A long illness followed, when it was at its worst a friend came—helped me to pull out. When I was well again, I searched for your mother, employed detectives, but we never found her. Neither did we find anything upon which to hang a doubt of what she had told me."

"No. She was very clever."

"But why? For God's sake, why? Why should she lie to me? I had never harmed her. We were married. I could give you a home. She knew it. I told her. Why should she do this senseless, horrible thing?"

She looked at him with wide eyes and stammered,

"Don't—don't you know?"

A sense of some hitherto undreamed horror came to him with that stammering whisper. The spur of it brought some of his firmness back.

"I do not know. There must have been a reason. You must tell me."

He forced her, through sheer will, to lift her eyes to his. They were startled and sullen. With a start he saw, what he had missed before, that this woman, his wife, was a stranger. But he had himself well in hand now and his gaze did not falter. There was no escaping its demands. Her answer came in a little burst of defiance.

"Yes, there was a reason. You may as well know it. Your letter and your coming were both too late. I was married."

The doctor was not quick enough for this—

"Yes, of course you were, but—"

"Oh, not to you! Can't you understand? I was married to another man…. You need not look like that! What did you expect? I warned you. I knew I could never defy mother. I told you so. But you said it wouldn't be long—that she need never know. And I waited and waited. I could have married more than once but I wouldn't. I faced mother and said I wouldn't. But every time it was harder. I couldn't keep it up. And you didn't come. Then when he came and we thought he was so rich she made me marry him. She made me. I thought you were never coming back anyway. I wrote you once telling you to come. You didn't answer."

She paused breathless but he could find nothing to say. It seemed a small thing that the letter must have missed him somewhere, his whole mind was absorbed in trying to comprehend one stupendous fact. The puzzle had shifted into place indeed.

"I thought you didn't care any more," her words raced as if eager to be done, "and mother gave me no peace. You will never understand how terrified I was of mother. And he seemed so kind and was going to be rich. He owned part of a gold mine—mother was sure it would mean millions. But it didn't. Mother was fooled there!" with a gleam of malice. "The mine turned out to be worthless—after we were married."

Callandar drew a sharp breath and shook himself as if to throw off the horror of some enthralling nightmare.

"You married him—this man—knowing that you were a wife already?"

"A fine sort of wife!" He quivered at the coarseness of meaning in her tone. "We were never really married."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it was all a farce. What's a ceremony? For all I knew it wasn't even legal. When you did not answer my letter I thought that was what your silence meant. I asked a girl to ask her father who was a lawyer if a marriage was legal when the girl was under age and the parents didn't know about it. He said sometimes it wasn't."

Callandar groaned. "And you married again—on that?"

"Yes. I had to, anyway. I couldn't hold out against mother. I daren't tell her. She left us after the wedding, when the mine failed, and went back to Cleveland. It was there she must have got your letter, and the note I found last night. And when you came, she told you I was dead—to save the scandal. She was always different after that, though I never guessed why. It was a lie, you see, and mother was terrified of telling lies. It was the only thing she was afraid of. She believed that liars go to hell."

The tone in which she spoke of the probable torment of her mother was quite without feeling. Callandar listened in fascinated wonder. Was this Molly?—Pretty, kind-hearted Molly?

"I cannot understand," he said in a stifled voice. "It is all too horrible! This man you married—"

"He is dead. He died a year ago. I thought at first that you must have found out and that was why you came. I should have died of fright if you had come while he was alive. He would never have understood—never! He didn't like mother but he wasn't afraid of her. And I think that at last he suspected that she had made me marry him for his money. But he was always good. At first I was afraid all the time—oh, it was dreadful! I think I have always been afraid—all my life—" Without warning she threw her hands out wildly and broke into choking sobs, crying with the abandon of a frightened child. Yet no one could have mistaken the impulse of her grief. It was for herself she wept.

Was it possible that she was a child still? A child in spite of her woman's knowledge, and the dulled lustre of her hair? Callandar remembered grimly that Molly's views of right and wrong had always been peculiarly simple. She had never wished to do wrong, but when she had done it, it had never seemed so very wrong to her. Her greatest dread had always been the dread of other people's censure.

"Don't cry," he said gently.

She must have felt the change in his voice, for although her sobs redoubled she did not again shrink from the hand he laid upon her hair. It was all over. She had told him the truth. Surely he must see that he was the one to blame, not she.

After a while she dried her eyes and looked up at him timidly but with restored confidence.

"People need never know now!" she said more calmly.

"People? Do people matter?"

She picked a daisy and began nervously to strip it of its petals—a pang of agony caught at the man's heart. So, only that morning, had he imagined himself consulting the daisy oracle. "She loves me, she loves me not." Absolutely he put the memory from him. Molly was speaking.

"People do matter. They make things so unpleasant. Not that I care as much about them as I used to; but still, one has to be careful. People are so prying, always wanting to know things," she glanced around nervously, "but let's not talk about them. I don't understand things yet. How did you find me, if you thought I was—dead?"

"Accident, if there be such a thing. I was driving down the road. I am living in the town near here—in Coombe!"

"But you can't! I live in Coombe. It is my home. There isn't a Chedridge in the place."

"My name is not Chedridge now. I took my uncle's name when I inherited his money. I am called Henry Callandar."

"Callandar!" Her voice rose shrilly on the word. "And you are living in
Coombe? Why you are—you must be—Esther's Dr. Callandar!"

The man went deathly white, yet his enormous self-control, the fruit of years, held him steady.

Mary Coombe began to laugh weakly. "Why, of course, that explains it all, don't you see? Haven't you placed me yet? Esther is my step-daughter. The man I married was Doctor Coombe."

"Good God!" The exclamation was revelation enough had Mary Coombe heard it. But she did not hear it; this new aspect of the situation had seemed to her so farcical that her laughter threatened to become hysterical. "Oh, it's so funny!" she gasped.

It was certainly funny—such a good joke! The Doctor thought he might as well laugh too. But at the sound of his laughter, hers abruptly ceased.

"Don't do that!"

He tried to control himself. It was hard. He wanted to shriek with laughter. Esther's step-mother, the mysterious Mrs. Coombe, was Molly—his wife! Some mocking demon shouted into his ears the words he had intended to say to her when he came to tell her that he and Esther loved each other. He thought of his own high mood of the morning, of the tender regret which he had laid away with the dead of the dead past. It seemed as if all the world were rocking with diabolic laughter—Fate plans such amusing things!

He caught himself up—madness lay that way.

"Please don't laugh!" said Mrs. Coombe a trifle fretfully. "At least not so loudly. You startle me. My nerves are so wretched. And anyway it's more serious than you seem to think. We shall have to discuss ways of managing so that people will not know. Your being already acquainted with Esther will help. It will make your coming to the house quite natural. But it will be better to admit that we knew each other years ago, were boy and girl friends or something like that. Your change of name and my marriage will explain perfectly why we did not know each other until we met. Nobody will go behind that. They will think it quite romantic. The only one we need be afraid of is Esther. She is so quick to notice—"

She did not know about Esther then? She had never guessed that the girl was more to him than a mere acquaintance. Thank God for that! And thank God, above all, that the worst had not happened—Esther herself did not know, would never know now—

"I believe it can come quite naturally after all," Mary went on more cheerfully. "No one will wonder at anything if we say we are old friends. And we can be specially careful with Esther. I wouldn't have her know for anything. She is like her father. She would never understand. She doesn't know what it is to be afraid, as I was afraid of my mother. Do you think it is wicked that sometimes I'm glad she is dead, mother, I mean?"

He answered with an effort. "You used to be fond of your mother, Molly."

"Oh, don't call me Molly. Call me Mary. It will sound much better. No one has ever heard me called Molly here. If Esther heard it she would wonder at once. You will be careful, won't you?"

"Yes. I shall be careful." He had not heard what she said, save that she had mentioned Esther's name. Rather he was thinking with a gratitude which shook his very soul that fate had at least spared the innocent. Esther was safe. She did not love him. He felt sure of that now. Strange irony, that his deepest thankfulness should be that Esther did not love him.

A small hand fell like a feather upon his arm.

"Harry!"

"Yes, Molly!"

He looked down into her quivering face and saw in it, dimly, the face of the girl in his locket, not a mere outward semblance this time but the soul of Molly Weston, reaching out to him across the years. Her light touch on his arm was the very shackle of fate. Her glance claimed him. Nothing that she had done could modify that claim—the terrible claim of weakness upon the strength which has misled it.

Vaguely he felt that this was the test, the ultimate test. If he failed now he was lost indeed. Something within him reached out blindly for the strength he had dreamed was his, found it, clutched it desperately—knew that it held firm.

He took the slight figure in his arms, felt that it still trembled and said the most comforting thing he could think of. "Don't worry, Molly. No one will ever know."