“He takes me for granted,” Cherry said, after a pause.  “There doesn’t seem to be anything alive in the feeling between us,” she added, slowly.  “If he says something to me, I make an effort to get his point of view before I answer.  If I tell him some plan of mine, I can see that he thinks it sounds crazy!  I don’t seem very domestic—­that’s all.  I—­I try.  Really, I do!  But—­” and Cherry seemed to brace herself in soul and body—­“but that’s marriage.  I’ll try again!”

She gave Alix a long kiss in parting, the next day, and clung to her.

“You’re the dearest sister a girl ever had, Alix.  You’re all I have, now!”

“I’ll write you about the case, and wire you if you’re needed, and see you soon!” Alix said, cheerfully.  Then she turned and went back into the empty house, keeping back her tears until the sound of the surrey had quite died away.

CHAPTER X

Alexandra Strickland, coming down the stairway of the valley house on an April evening, glanced curiously at the door.  Her eyes moved to the old clock, and a smile tugged involuntarily at the corners of her mouth.  Only eight o’clock, but the day had been so long and so quiet that she had fancied that the hour was much later, and had wondered who knocked so late.

She crossed to the door and opened it to darkness and rain, and to a man in a raincoat, who whipped off a spattered cap and stood smiling in the light of the lamp she held.  Instantly, with a sort of gasp of surprise and pleasure and some deeper emotion, she set down the lamp, and held out her hands gropingly and went into his arms.  He laughed joyously as he kissed her, and for a minute they clung together.

“Peter!” she said.  “You angel—­when did you arrive and what are you doing, and tell me all about it!”

“But, Alix—­you’re thin!” Peter said, holding her at arm’s length.  “And—­and—­” He gently touched the black she wore, and fixed puzzled and troubled eyes upon her face.  “Alix—­” he asked, apprehensively.

For answer she tried to smile at him, but her lips trembled and her eyes brimmed.  She had led the way into the old sitting room now, and Peter recognized, with a thrill of real feeling, the shabby rugs and books and pictures, and the square piano beside which he had watched Cherry’s fat, childish hand on the scales so many times, and Alix scowling over her songs.

“You heard—­about Dad?” Alix faltered now, turning to face him at the mantel.

“Your father!” Peter said, shocked.

“But hadn’t you heard, Peter?”

“My dear—­my dearest child, I’m just off the steamer.  I got in at six o’clock.  I’d been thinking of you all the time, and I suddenly decided to cross the bay and come straight on to the valley, before I even went to the club or got my mail!  Tell me—­your father—­”

She had knelt before the cold hearth, and he knelt beside her, and they busied themselves with logs and kindling in the old way.  A blaze crept up about the logs and Alix accepted Peter’s handkerchief and wiped a streak of soot from her wrist, quite as if she was a child again, as she settled herself in her chair.