the one thing he could not bear to be reminded of, the one thing he was trying to forget. He simply must not think of it yet. That awful suspicion—and her words had had an appalling effect upon it, had given it a kind of stability as fact. All at once he felt terribly alone. He could not lie there and think of that. He wanted her arms about him, wanted her life beating against his own to assure him that it was a sure and positive thing, and that it could not be spirited away from him. He got out of the hammock and went in to look for her. He had not heard her go out. He knocked on her door, and getting no response he went into her room wondering now if she had been hurt by his coldness. When he could not find her he was sure she had. He could have kicked himself.
He went round the house calling for her, and down to the boathouse, and back along the drive to the gate. He worked himself into the state of a lost child when she did not answer. When at last he saw her coming along the road, he hurried to meet her and caught her to him.
“Oh, don’t go away from me,” he begged, clinging to her.
“Why, my dear, my dear, I—I thought ———”
She wondered whatever had changed him so, and she wondered it again many times during the night.
II
“Valerie, I want to go to Roland’s Mills for a day or two to hunt up some fresh stories. I’ve heard of an Englishman over that way I’d like to see.”
“Oh, good. Give my love to David Bruce, and tell him we haven’t been divorced yet,” she answered lightly.
He smiled back at her.
They had just finished lunch on a cool April day.
