Sophy let him take the basket from her and kiss her rain-wet cheek. She was glad that the rain came between her and that kiss. She could not say anything just at first—her quick running and the suddenness of his appearance had quite taken her breath for the moment.

"But you're sopping ... sopping!..." he kept repeating. He, too, could not think of anything more fitting to say. And Sophy began to murmur back:

"But you're getting wet, too ... what a shame!..."

They ran together towards the house. But now the rain ceased, and again the wind came—vicious, blatant. The big hedge of box just in front of them was a dark fury of tossing boughs.

"Oh, the trees!... I'm so afraid some of the trees will go down!..." said Sophy.

They ran on under the dark tunnel of box, and out upon the lawn. As they did so, Sophy gave a cry and halted.

"Look!" she gasped. "The big locust ... oh!... It's going ... it's going...."

She ran towards the middle of the lawn. Loring followed—caught her firmly by the arm.

"Wait...." he said. "Don't go any nearer...."

They stood dumbly watching the giant tree. It was fully a hundred feet high—a monarch shaft crowned with massive branches—wrapped python-like by a huge trumpet-vine. It was the last of its splendid generation—a royal tree. Now it rocked heavily—to and fro—farther and farther each way, each time—a groaning sound came from it. This sound splintered suddenly. It was like the bursting of a human groan into a shriek. The noble crown swept forward—majestically—as it were, deliberately at first—then faster, faster, in a sort of suicidal frenzy. The huge tree toppled, split at its middle fork—went crashing down, ripping loose the snaky folds of vine, shattering the trees next it. Their splintered tops shone suddenly raw and yellow against the grey sky. The remaining half of the fallen locust had a great "blaze" all down one side, as though it had been stripped by lightning. The inner wood, thus disclosed, all torn and riven, had something ghastly, like the revelation of a wound in living flesh.

For a second longer Sophy stood quite still. Then she ran forward again. She was pale as at an accident to a dear friend.

The locust stretched across the gravel driveway. Its crown lay among the crushed branches of a huge box-shrub. The poor box-shrub had a piteous, feminine look, as though it had tried in vain to support the stricken giant on its soft breast. The boughs and leaves of the prone tree still quivered slightly as in a death-throe. The big vine swung its loose, snaky folds over the ruin. The grass was strewn with leaves and broken limbs. Sophy went up and put her hand on the rough trunk in silence. Her lips quivered.

"What an infernal shame!" said Loring.

He stared all about, then at the wrecked tree again.

"Isn't this where the hammocks used to hang?" he asked.

"Yes," said Sophy.

They stood silent again. Both were thinking of how they had swung day after day in those hammocks in their love-time. Then the scarlet bells of the trumpet-vine had hung above them. It had been like their flowering passion swinging scarlet bells above them. Both felt something sad and ominous in the fall of the great tree just as Loring had arrived.

"I'll send the gardener to see about it," Sophy said at last, turning away. They went together to the house.

"When can I see you ... for a long talk?" asked Loring, as they reached the door.

"As soon as I've changed. You'll want to change, too. Is your luggage here?"

"Yes. A darkey drove me up from Sweet-Waters."

"Has Mammy Nan seen to your room?"

"Thanks. Yes. Everything's quite right."

"Then ... in half an hour ... in my study."

Loring told himself that he'd forgotten how beautiful she was. And that black bow on her hair!... He had not seen her wear that black bow since.... Oh, what a fool he'd been! ... what a superlative ass!... That black bow had a queer magic for him. It made the past seem only yesterday. Oddly it set her back where she had been when he first saw her wear it. It shook his lordly sense of possession. She had not belonged to him then. Somehow she did not seem to belong to him now. He felt doubtful ... apprehensive. What if...? Yes. What if...?

He changed hurriedly and went down to her study. A clear fire of apple-boughs and cedar burned on the hearth. The warmth drew their sweetest scent from the rose-geraniums. There were no fuchsias on the green steps now. It irritated Charlotte that Sophy would not have her splendid fuchsias in this room. But Sophy could not endure the fantastic flowers near her. They were too potent with wild memories.

Before the fire Dhu was lying. He eyed Loring from golden, white-rimmed eyes without moving at first. Then he rose and wagged a languidly polite tail. He had never quite approved of the young man.

Loring sat down and tried to beguile the dog into friendship. Dhu was civil but distant. Sophy came in, and he rushed and reared upon her, putting a paw on either shoulder.

She looked very tall in her black satin tea-gown. The collie was beautifully golden against the black, shining stuff. And this gown Loring recognised as he had recognised the black bow. It was a gown of old days. It had some yellow lace at the throat, and queer, carved silver buttons. How that lace smelt sweet of her! How often he had kissed it in kissing her throat! And those silver buttons ... how cold and hard they had felt to his cheek upon the warmth of her breast!

She came up and sat down in her own low chair on the other side of the hearth.

"Quite Darby and Joan we look...." said Loring, with a nervous laugh. Sophy smiled, but this smile was enigmatic.

"Why didn't you write to me? Why didn't you tell me you were coming, Morris?" she asked gently.

"Oh ... well...." said Loring.

He went red, and fussed with a piece of cedar that had fallen on the hearth. The fragrant smoke got into his eyes—and made them smart.

"You see...." he went on with more assurance, as he hammered the log into place again, "I knew this was the sort of thing that would have to be talked out...."

"Well, then...?" said Sophy.

He glanced at her rather sheepishly.

"Oh, hang it all, Sophy!" he said. "Don't make it too hard. What do you want?... Probation?... Kow-towing? What?"

"No. I don't want anything like that, Morris. What I want is for us both to act like good, sensible friends, and...."

"Friends!" he exclaimed.

"Yes ... friends," said she firmly.

"Now look here, Sophy," he protested, red again. "You surely aren't nursing that grievance still? After all these weeks?"

"What 'grievance' do you allude to, Morris?"

He grew redder and redder.

"Why ... you know," he muttered shamefacedly.

"No, Morris. I don't. I really haven't any 'grievance.' You did a thing that seems to me final. It isn't a grievance ... it's just an end."

"Now, Sophy! If you think my ... my ... a ... my idiocy with that girl...."

"Morris ... don't! But while that is one reason of my feeling as I do ... it isn't the thing I mean."

"Then in God's name ... what is?"

He was standing now, looking excited and angry. He came over in front of her.

"What is?" he repeated.

Sophy looked up at him and her nostrils spread a little.

"Have you really forgotten?" she said, in a clear voice. "You accused me of having a lover...."

"Oh, for God's sake!" cried Loring. His chest laboured with his strong excitement. "Haven't I told you I was damned sorry! Haven't I apologised—humbly? Haven't I explained I was out of my wits? Haven't I? Haven't I?"

He stood waiting for her to answer. All up in arms—white now—quite outraged by her unkind obstinacy.

She answered without apparent emotion:

"All that doesn't change what you said then. Of course you apologise—of course you say you were out of your wits. What else could you say? But—— Well, you see, Morris—it happens to be one of those facts that can't be wiped out by apologies and regrets. Some words can't be wiped out by other words," she ended, with a flash of bitterness.

He gazed at her sullenly.

"Can't you make allowances for a man's being mad with jealousy?" he said.

"No. Jealousy—of that kind—is always an insult."

He stood silent for a while. Then suddenly he dropped to his knees beside her. He felt inspired.

"Sophy...." he said very low, a sort of wheedling cunning in his voice. "I wonder ... if you aren't ... just a bit ... jealous, yourself?"

"I?"

"Yes. You. Of ... oh, you know who I mean! But, Sophy ... listen ... I swear to you a man can be ... like that ... about another woman—and yet love his wife ... really love only her ... I swear it to you."

Sophy smiled again.

"Yes. So I've heard," she said.

He was eager in a moment.

"Well, then ... don't you see?... It was only a ... a flash in the pan—as one might say.... Really, you know, it's true. That one can fancy a woman for a bit like that, yet never dream of loving her as one loves one's wife...."

"Morris...." said Sophy seriously. She leaned her chin on her hand, and looked gravely at him.

"Well?" he said expectantly.

"What would you think of an American who had himself naturalised a German, or a Russian, or a Spaniard ... yet declared that he really loved America best of all!"

"I don't see...." stammered Loring.

"Yes, you do see," smiled Sophy. "And I want to take this opportunity of assuring you that I'm not jealous of Belinda. Only—please don't try to make your love for her a proof of your still greater love for me."

"Sophy...!"

"I'm not one of those people who cut up love into sections—vivisect it ... for it dies, I can tell you, when it's hacked to bits like that!... This part ignoble—that part noble. Love is a whole—a whole—or it is nothing. What you gave to Belinda you could not have given her if you'd loved me really. I don't say would not ... I say could not...."

"But I swear to you...."

".... Could not!" repeated Sophy inflexibly.

He had got to his feet again, and was looking at her with a disturbed, baffled look.

"I do love you, Sophy," he said at last. "Don't you believe I love you?"

"In a way ... yes," said Sophy.

"What do you mean by 'in a way'?".

"Well—in a way that doesn't allow me to interfere with greater pleasures."

He went crimson.

"Oh, I say!" he said. "How unkind ... how awfully hard and unkind of you!"

"There mustn't be anything but truth in this talk between us, Morris. I'm sorry to seem unkind. I only said what I feel and believe."

"God! I didn't know you could be so cruel...." he muttered, staring at the fire.

"It isn't I that am cruel; it's the truth that's cruel," she said.

"You call that 'the truth'? ... God!" he said again.

"Then tell me...." she said. "What pleasure have you ever put second to me?"

"What ... pleasure?" he stammered.

She looked at him steadily.

"Yes ... what pleasure?" she repeated.

"I.... I...."

He was frankly at a loss. She had such a queer, upsetting way of putting things. He stood ruffled, resentful, aggrieved, helpless. Not a pleasure could he think of that he had not put before her. His head buzzed with the effort to recall some small sacrifice that he had made in her behalf. She was speaking in a different voice now—softer, more feeling.

"Ah, Morris," she said, "it is all so sad ... so horribly sad! Though I may seem unkind—my heart aches with it. But this has not come suddenly. A long, long time it's been coming. It began ... yes ... that night ... do you remember?—that night over two years ago ... when you came to my room...."—she hesitated, caught her lip hard for a second, went on in a lower voice—"when you came to me—not yourself ... for drink...."

He had put up one hand over his eyes as he leaned with his elbow on the mantelpiece. He said in a choked voice:

"I've been a beast ... sometimes ... I admit."

She hesitated again; then said, whispering:

"That was a pleasure you always put before me."

"Don't!" he said.

"I won't, then," she answered pityingly.

Her eyes scalded with tears. Her hands, locked hard together, were trembling.

There was a long pause.

"Sophy," he said presently, very low, his hand still over his eyes, "how if I take an oath to you never to drink again?"

She looked with a tender, wise look at his hidden face.

"You would come to hate me for it in the end, dear."

"Oh ... Sophy...."

"Yes, dear. You would."

"I know.... You think I couldn't keep it," he said miserably.

"No. But if you kept it, you would be hating me all the time."

A gush of bitterness rose in him.

"So that's what you think of me?" he said.

"It's what I think your nature would make you feel—bound by such an oath."

There came another pause.

He broke out rather vehemently again:

"At least do me the justice to admit that I was dead set against having Linda visit us...."

"Yes. I remember. But it would have come sooner or later. You would have been thrown with her in other ways."

"You really think I ... a ... care for her?"

Sophy didn't answer for a second or two; then she said:

"Morris ... that morning at Newport ... when you said those words to me ... you told me afterwards—that it was Belinda who had made you ... suspect me."

"Ah ... don't put it that way!..."

"What other way can I put it? You did tell me it was Belinda, didn't you?"

"Yes. And a more...."

"Wait, Morris. I want to ask you something. Whether you answer it or not, I must ask it. It's this: You had been with Belinda—before you came to me. Had you been together—like lovers?"

He dropped his face into his two hands. She could see the hot flush on it between his fingers.

"Oh ... but you're hard ..." he groaned.

Now Sophy had her moment of bitterness.

"I know," she said, "that the perfect wife is supposed to be motherly when her husband's fancy strays—and lover-like when it turns home again. But I am not perfect in any way. And I don't think I'm hard when I ask for truth between us."

Loring dropped his hands and uncovered eyes ablaze with a helpless fury of regret and vindictiveness.

"I wish to God the girl had never been born!" he cried.

"You haven't answered me yet," said Sophy.

He gazed at her with a sort of braggadocio of defiance for an instant, then dropped his face into his hands again.

"Oh ... it's no use!..." he lamented. "We are low brutes ... men are low brutes.... Passion is a low thing...."

"No—real passion is not low," Sophy broke in on him.

"You know what I mean...." he muttered.

"Yes. I do. But don't call mere sensuality passion. Real passion is like a great, flowering tree. Its roots strike deep into the earth ... its crown is among the stars. Do you call a red rose 'low' because it springs from the earth?"

"How you catch one up!" protested Loring moodily.

She rushed on:

"I do hate so to hear that word misused—abused! Sensual fancies are low because they have no soul ... no flowering. They are like truffles ... all of the earth earthy. Yes ... there are truffle-loves," she ended bitterly.

"And men, you think, are like swine rooting for truffles!" he muttered.

"Sometimes ... when Circe is about...." she admitted.

Morris got up and leaned again upon the mantelpiece. He heaved a disconsolate sigh.

"Oh, Lord!... What a talk for a man to have with his wife!" he said heavily.