Then she slept, for hours and hours, while the winter sun smiled down on the bare trees in the square and women in furs and babies in woolens walked and chattered on the leaf-strewn paths.

Such a sleep and such a waking are memorable in a lifetime.  Rachael woke, smiling and refreshed, in a radiant world.  Afternoon sunshine was streaming in at her windows, she felt rested, deliciously ready for life again.

To bathe, to dress with the chatting Jimmy tying strings to her dressing-table, to have the maids quietly and cheerfully coming and going in the old way; this in itself was delight.  But when she tiptoed into Derry’s room, and found hope and confidence there, found the blue eyes wide open, under the bandage, and heard the enchanting little voice announce, “I had hot milk, Mother,” Rachael felt that her cup of joy was brimming.

He had fallen out of the swing, Derry told her, and Dad had hurted him, and Jimmy added sensationally that Derry had broken his leg!

“But just the same, we wanted our Daddy the moment we woke up this morning,” Miss Moore smiled, “and we managed to hold up one arm to welcome him, and it was Daddy that held the glass of milk, wasn’t it, Gerald?”

“She calls me Gerald because she doesn’t know me very well,” said Derry in a tactful aside, and Rachael, not daring to laugh for fear of beginning to cry, could only kiss the brown hand, and devour, with tear-dazzled eyes, the eager face.

Then she and Jimmy went down to have a meal that was like breakfast and luncheon and tea in one, with Warren.  And to Rachael, thinking of all their happy meals together, since honeymoon days, this seemed the best of all.  The afternoon light in the breakfast-room, the maids so poorly concealing their delight in this turn of events, little Jim so pleased at finding a meal served at this unusual hour, and his parents seemingly disposed to let him eat anything and everything, and Warren, tired—­so strangely gray—­and yet utterly content and at peace; these made the hour memorably happy; a forerunner of other happy hours to come.

“It seems to me that there never was such a bright sunshine, and never such a nice little third person, and never such coffee, and such happiness!” said Rachael, her eyes reflecting something of the placid winter day; soul and body wrapped in peace.  “Yesterday--only yesterday, I was wretched beyond all believing!  To-day I think I have had the best hours of my life!”

“It is always going to be this way for you, Rachael,” her husband said, “my life is going to be one long effort to keep you absolutely happy.  You will never grieve on my account again!”

“Say rather,” she said seriously, “that we know each other, and ourselves, now.  Say that I will never demand utter perfection of you, or you of me.  But, Warren—­Warren—­as long as we love each other—­”