But he made no reply to her.  We were all silent for a moment, then he said, “Was I wrong, Des.?”

“No, no.”

While, I was saying to myself, in behalf of Veronica, whose calm face baffled me, “Enigma, Sphinx”; she turned to Desmond, holding out her right arm, and said, “You are the man I saw in my dream.”

“And you are like the Virgin I made an offering to, only not quite so bedizened.”  He took her extended hand and kissed it.

Ben threw the reins with a sudden dash toward Manuel, who was standing by, and jumped down.

“Have tea with me,” I asked, “and music, too.  Verry, will you play for Desmond?”

She took his arm, and entered the house.

“Friend,” I said to Ben, who lingered by the door, “to contend with me was not folly, unless it has kept you from contending with yourself.  Tell me—­how is it with you?”

“Cassandra, the jaws of hell are open.  If you are satisfied with the end, I must be.”

* * * * *

After I was married, I went to Belem.  But Mrs. Somers never forgave me; and Mr. Somers liked Desmond no better than he had in former times.  Neither did Adelaide and Ann ever consider the marriage in any light but that of a misalliance.  Nor did they recognize any change in him.  It might be permanent, but it was no less an aberration which they mistrusted.  The ground plan of the Bellevue Pickersgill character could not be altered.

In a short time after we were married we went to Europe and stayed two years.

These last words I write in the summer time at our house in Surrey, for Desmond likes to be here at this season, and I write in my old chamber.  Before its windows rolls the blue summer sea.  Its beauty wears a relentless aspect to me now; its eternal monotone expresses no pity, no compassion.

Veronica is lying on the floor watching her year-old baby.  It smiles continually, but never cries, never moves, except when it is moved.  Her face, thin and melancholy, is still calm and lovely.  But her eyes go no more in quest of something beyond.  A wall of darkness lies before her, which she will not penetrate.  Aunt Merce sits near me with her knitting.  When I look at her I think how long it is since mother went, and wonder whether death is not a welcome idea to those who have died.  Aunt Merce looks at Verry and the child with a sorrowful countenance, exchanges a glance with me, shakes her head.  If Verry speaks to her, she answers cheerfully, and tries to conceal the grief which she feels when she sees the mother and child together.

Ben has been dead six months.  Only Desmond and I were with him in his last moments.  When he sprang from his bed, staggered backwards, and fell dead, we clung together with faint hearts, and mutely questioned each other.

“God is the Ruler,” he said at last.  “Otherwise let this mad world crush us now.”