And now there was another little journey, up one hill and down another to a quaint hostelry—­almost empty of guests in this early season.

A competent little landlady and an old colored man led them to the suite for which Barry had telephoned.  The little landlady smiled at Leila and showed the white roses which Barry had sent for her room, and the old colored man lighted all the candles.

There was a supper set out on the table in their sitting-room, with cold roast chicken and hot biscuits, a bottle of light wine, and a round cake with white frosting.

Leila cut the cake.  “To think that I should have a wedding cake,” she said to Barry.

So they made a feast of it, but Barry did not open the bottle of wine until their supper was ended.  Then he poured two glasses.

“To you,” he whispered, and smiled at his bride.

Then before his lips could touch it, he set the glass down hastily, so that it struck against the bottle and broke, and the wine stained the white cloth.

Leila looking up, startled, met a strange look.  “Barry,” she whispered, “Barry, dear boy.”

He rose and blew out the candles.

“Let me tell you—­in the dark,” he said.  “You’ve got to know, Leila.”

And in the moonlight he told her why they had wanted him to go away.

“It is because I’ve got to fight—­devils.”

At first she did not understand.  But he made her understand.

She was such a little thing in her yellow gown.  So little and young to deal with a thing like this.

But in that moment the child became a woman.  She bent over him.

“My husband,” she said, “nothing can ever part us now, Barry.”

So love taught her what to say, and so she comforted him.

The next morning Elizabeth Dean met Leila Dick at the station.  That she was really meeting Leila Ballard was a thing, of course, of which she had no knowledge.  But Leila was acutely conscious of her new estate.  It seemed to her that the motor horn brayed it, that the birds sang it, that the cows mooed it, that the dogs barked it, “Leila Ballard, Leila Ballard, Leila Ballard, wife of Barry—­you’re not Leila Dick, you’re not, you’re not, you’re not.”

“I never knew you to be so quiet,” Elizabeth said at last, curiously.  “What’s the matter?”

Leila brought herself back with an effort.  “I like to listen,” she said, “but I am usually such a chatterbox that people won’t believe it.”

Somehow she managed to get through that day.  Somehow she managed to greet and meet the people who had been invited to the luncheon which was given in her honor.  But while in body she was with them, in spirit she was with Barry.  Barry was her husband—­her husband who loved her and needed her in his life.

His confession of the night before had brought with it no deadening sense of hopelessness.  To her, any future with Barry was rose-colored.