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that most needed saying and I am glad you know me better and that I know you. It is really—if you will forgive my saying so—because I begin to know you at last, and Celia, that I feel I can go away and leave Clive to you. I should have been conceited enough to have thought that no one else could do for him what I could. But I was mistaken about that—as about so many things. So, wishing you the best of luck, dear Monica,

Monica laid down the letter on the sheet. Here it was in her hand. What had been the dearest wish of her heart for years was accomplished. Hester was eliminated. And the thought brought her no joy. On the contrary, she knew, as she lay there, that dismay was closing in upon her. The face of Celia, summoned by an act of will and at Hester’s bidding, only rose to share in her consternation. Arctic, moonlike, it floated over the plains. Some possibilities, once extinguished, could only shine with a reflected radiance for ever after. Clive and Celia might once have married; but Hester was his wife. Hester was here, close by; she was nearer, strange as it was to realize it, than Celia. A person hated