Immersed in a happiness and a hope which vivified every motion of his life, Banneker was nevertheless under a continuous strain of watchfulness; the qui vive of the knight who guards his lady with leveled lance from a never-ceasing threat.  At the point of his weapon cowered and crouched the dragon of The Searchlight, with envenomed fangs of scandal.

As the months rounded out to a year, he grew, not less careful, indeed, but more confident.  Eyre had quietly dropped out of the world.  Hunting big game in some wild corner of Nowhere, said rumor.

Io had revealed to Banneker the truth; her husband was in a sanitarium not far from Philadelphia.  As she told him, her eyes were dim.  Swift, with the apprehension of the lover to read the loved one’s face, she saw a smothered jealousy in his.

“Ah, but you must pity him, too!  He has been so game.”

“Has been?”

“Yes.  This is nearly the end.  I shall go down there to be near him.”

“It’s a long way, Philadelphia,” he said moodily.

“What a child!  Two hours in your car from The Retreat.”

“Then I may come down?”

“May?  You must!”

He was still unappeased.  “But you’ll be very far away from me most of the time.”

She gleamed on him, her face all joyous for his incessant want of her.  “Stupid!  We shall see almost as much of each other as before.  I’ll be coming over to New York two or three times a week.”

Wherewith, and a promised daily telephone call, he must be content.

Not at that meeting did he broach the subject nearest his heart.  He felt that he must give Io time to adjust herself to the new-developed status of her husband, as of one already passed out of the world.  A fortnight later he spoke out.  He had gone down to The Retreat for the week-end and she had come up from Philadelphia to meet him, for dinner.  He found her in a secluded alcove off the main dining-porch, alone.  She rose and came to him, after that one swift, sweet, precautionary glance about her with which a woman in love assures herself of safety before she gives her lips; tender and passionate to the yearning need of her that sprang in his face.

“Ban, I’ve been undergoing a solemn preachment.”

“From whom?”

“Archie.”

“Is Densmore here?”

“No; he came over to Philadelphia to deliver it.”

“About us?”

She nodded.  “Don’t take it so gloomily.  It was to be expected.”

He frowned.  “It’s on my mind all the time; the danger to you.”

“Would you end it?” she said softly.

“Yes.”

Too confident to misconstrue his reply, she let her hand fall on his, waiting.

“Io, how long will it be, with Eyre?  Before—­”

“Oh; that!” The brilliance faded from her eager loveliness.  “I don’t know.  Perhaps a year.  He suffers abominably, poor fellow.”