blunder. It had not crossed Sheilah's mind that there was any motive in his death. Her lifelong unawareness of his last gift to her was Felix's reward. Behind still another closed door, that night, lay Felix—silent, inarticulate, as he had been all his life, but crowned with success at last.
Sheilah had not called up Cicely to tell her of Felix's death until the end of the second day. Laetitia and Roddie, hastily summoned home from college and school, had already gone upstairs to their rooms. After Sheilah had said good-bye to Cicely in her composed voice (she had been like that all day—numb, calm, controlled without effort), she went into the kitchen. It was dark save for two checkered squares of moonlight on the floor. Softly she closed the door, and crossing the room, sat down at the kitchen table, burying her head in her arms, folded on the red cloth. Cicely had said, 'I will tell Roger. He is here with me now.' With her now? It was all right, of course. All right. As it should be. As she had chosen. But oh—oh—she was so tired—suddenly so very tired. If she could only cry!
Sheilah was still sitting at the kitchen table in the moonlight, when she heard dimly, through the closed door, the telephone, one short ring and two long ones. Her number—and a moment after, the clock on the mantel wheezingly struck the hour. Ten
