“Ah,” said Corthell, quickly and earnestly, “that is the secret. It was love⁠—even the foolish boy and girl love⁠—love that after all made your life sweet then.”

She let her hands fall into her lap, and, musing, turned the rings back and forth upon her fingers.

“Don’t you think so?” he asked, in a low voice.

She bent her head slowly, without replying. Then for a long moment neither spoke. Laura played with her rings. The artist, leaning forward in his chair, looked with vague eyes across the room. And no interval of time since his return, no words that had ever passed between them, had been so fraught with significance, so potent in drawing them together as this brief, wordless moment.

At last Corthell turned towards her.

“You must not think,” he murmured, “that your life is without love now. I will not have you believe that.”

But she made no answer.