“Why?”

“Because you wouldn’t be quite so—­so cryptic—­such a very abstruse problem.  Sometimes I think I understand you better than you do yourself, and sometimes I am utterly lost; now, if you were younger I could read you easily for myself, and, if you were older, you would read yourself for me.”

“I was never very young!” said I.

“No, you were always too repressed, Peter.”

“Yes, perhaps I was.”

“Repression is good up to a certain point, but beyond that it is dangerous,” said she, with a portentous shake of the head.  “Heigho! was it a week or a year ago that you avowed yourself happy, and couldn’t tell why?”

“I was the greater fool!” said I.

“For not knowing why, Peter?”

“For thinking myself happy!”

“Peter, what is happiness?”

“An idea,” said I, “possessed generally of fools!”

“And what is misery?”

“Misery is also an idea.”

“Possessed only by the wise, Peter; surely he is wiser who chooses happiness?”

“Neither happiness nor misery comes from choice.”

“But—­if one seeks happiness, Peter?”

“One will assuredly find misery!” said I, and, sighing, rose, and taking my hammer from its place above my bookshelf, set to work upon my brackets, driving them deep into the heavy framework of the door.  All at once I stopped, with my hammer poised, and, for no reason in the world, looked back at Charmian, over my shoulder; looked to find her watching me with eyes that were (if it could well be) puzzled, wistful, shy, and glad at one and the same time; eyes that veiled themselves swiftly before my look, yet that shot one last glance, between their lashes, in which were only joy and laughter.

“Yes?” said I, answering the look.  But she only stooped her head and went on sewing; yet the color was bright in her cheeks.

And, having driven in the four brackets, or staples, and closed the door, I took up the bars and showed her how they were to lie crosswise across the door, resting in the brackets.

“We shall be safe now, Peter,” said she; “those bars would resist—­an elephant.”

“I think they would,” I nodded; “but there is yet something more.”  Going to my shelf of books I took thence the silver-mounted pistol she had brought with her, and balanced it in my hand.  “To-morrow I will take this to Cranbrook, and buy bullets to fit it.”

“Why, there are bullets there—­in one of the old shoes, Peter.”

“They are too large; this is an unusually small calibre, and yet it would be deadly enough at close range.  I will load it for you, Charmian, and give it into your keeping, in case you should ever—­grow afraid again, when I am not by; this is a lonely place—­for a woman—­at all times.”

“Yes, Peter.”  She was busily employed upon a piece of embroidery, and began to sing softly to herself again as she worked,—­that old song which worthy Mr. Pepys mentions having heard from the lips of mischievous-eyed Nell Gwynn: