* * * * *

A little later the Meadowses stood together at the open window of their room, which led by a short flight of steps to a flowering garden below.  All Franick had gone to bed, and this wing in which the “state-rooms” were, seemed to be remote from the rest of the house.  They were alone; the night was balmy; and there was a flood of secret joy in Doris’s veins which gave her a charm, a beguilement Arthur had never seen in her before.  She was more woman, and therefore more divine!  He could hardly recall her as the careful housewife, harassed by lack of pence, knitting her brows over her butcher’s books, mending endless socks, and trying to keep the nose of a lazy husband to the grindstone.  All that seemed to have vanished.  This white sylph was pure romance—­pure joy.  He saw her anew; he loved her anew.

“Why did you look so pretty to-night?  You little witch!” he murmured in her ear, as he held her close to him.

“Arthur!”—­she drew herself away from him. “Did I look pretty?  Honour bright!”

“Delicious!  How often am I to say it?”

“You’d better not.  Don’t wake the devil in me, Arthur!  It’s all this tea-gown.  If you go on like this, I shall have to buy one like it.”

“Buy a dozen!” he said joyously.  “Look there, Doris—­you see that path?  Let’s go on to the moor a little.”

Out they crept, like truant children, through the wood-path and out upon the moor.  Meadows had brought a shawl, and spread it on a rock, full under the moonlight.  There they sat, close together, feeling all the goodness and glory of the night, drinking in the scents of heather and fern, the sounds of plashing water and gently moving winds.  Above them, the vault of heaven and the friendly stars; below them, the great hollow of the valley, the scattered lights, the sounds of distant trains.

“She didn’t kiss me when she said good-night!” said Doris suddenly.  “She wasn’t the least sentimental—­or ashamed—­or grateful!  Having said what was necessary, she let it alone.  She’s a real lady—­though rather a savage.  I like her!”

“Who are you talking of?  Lady Dunstable?  I had forgotten all about her.  All the same, darling, I should like to know what made you do all this for a woman you said you detested!”

“I did detest her.  I shall probably detest her again.  Leopards don’t change their spots, do they?  But I shan’t—­fear her any more!”

Something in her tone arrested Meadows’s attention.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, what I say!” cried Doris, drawing herself a little from him, with a hand on his shoulder.  “I shall never fear her, or anyone, any more.  I’m safe!  Why did I do it?  Do you really want to know?  I did it—­because—­I was so sorry for her—­poor silly woman,—­who can’t get on with her own son!  Arthur!—­if our son doesn’t love me better than hers loves her—­you may kill me, dear, and welcome!”