she had been.  And she must silently endure the terrible fact that her husband knew, and that he would never forget.  Over and over again her spirit shrank at some new evidence of the fact that, with all his love for her, his admiration, his loyalty, there was a reservation in her husband’s heart, a conviction—­of which he was perhaps not conscious himself—­that Julia was not quite as other women.  Her criticism of others must be more gentle, her opinion less confidently offered.  Others might find in her exceptional charms, rare strength, and rare wisdom—­not Jim.  For him she was always the exquisite penitent, who had so royally earned a perpetually renewed forgiveness, the little crippled playfellow whom it was his delight to carry in his arms.  His judgment for what concerned his children was the wiser, and for her, too, when she longed to throw herself into this work of reform or that—­to expose herself, in other words, to the very element from which a kind Providence had seen fit to remove her.  Obviously, on certain subjects there must not be two opinions, in any house, and, whatever the usual custom, obviously he was the person to decide in his own.

“Rich says you were not a saint yourself when you were in college, Jim!” she had burst out once, long years ago, before their separation.  But only once.  After all, the laws were not of Jim’s making; whatever he had done, he was a respecter of convention, a keeper of the law of man.  Julia had broken God’s law, had repented, and had been forgiven.  But she had also broken the law of man, for which no woman ever is forgiven.  And though this exquisite and finished woman, with her well-stored brain and ripened mind, her position and her charm, was not the little Julia Page of the old O’Farrell Street days, she must pay the price of that other Julia’s childish pride and ignorance still.

She must go on, listening, with her wise, wistful smile, to the chatter of other women, wincing at a thousand little pricks that even her husband could not see, winning him from his ugly moods with that mixture of the child and the woman that his love never could resist.

His love!  After all he did love her and his children, and she loved the three with every fibre of heart and soul.  Julia ended her reverie, as she always ended her reveries, with a new glow of hope in her heart and a half smile on her lips.  Their love would save them all—­love fulfilled the law.

“Julia!” said Jim, at the door, “where are you?”

She turned in her window recess.

“Not escaped, O Sultan!”

“Well”—­he had his arm about her, his air was that of a humoured child—­“I didn’t suppose you had!  But I hate you to go down without me!”

“Well, the poor abused boy!” Julia laughed.  “Come, we’ll go down together!”

“What were you thinking of, standing there all that time?” he asked.

“You principally, Doctor Studdiford!” Julia gave him a quick sidewise glance.