confidence, learning their hearts. Now Gabriel's was clear, but Margaret's less distinct. I saw them sometimes as in a magic-lantern show, when the house was quiet, and I in the darkness of my bedroom. On the circle in the white sheet that hung then against the wall, I saw them walk and talk, he pleading, she coquetting. Whilst the slide was being changed Peter Kennedy acted as spokesman:
"Week-end after week-end Gabriel Stanton came down, and all the hours of the day they passed together. Four months of the waiting time had gone by and her freedom was in sight. Her nerves were taut and fretted. She often had fainting attacks. He never questioned me about her but once. I told him the truth, that she had suffered, was suffering more than any woman can endure, any young and delicate woman. And her love for him grew..."
I did not want to stop the show, the moving figures and changing slides, yet I called out from my swaying bed:
"No, no, she never loved him." And Peter Kennedy turned his eyes upon me, his surprised and questioning eyes.
"Why do you say that? Do you know a better way of loving?"
"Yes, many better ways."
"You have loved, then?"
"Read my books."
"The love-making in your novels? Is that all
