Then they went up to the big drawing-room—­he was used to big rooms—­ and he flung himself at full length upon one of the downy couches, and she put silk pillows under his head.

While she was doing it, he pulled her down to him and kissed her.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” he murmured in her ear.

For answer, she pressed her lips to his ivory brows and his dropped eyelids.  Her big heart was too full for speech.

“Now I am going to play to you,” she whispered, and went off to the old piano, that the tuner had prepared for this sacred purpose.

What years it was since she had cared to touch piano keys!  And never since the love-time of her youth had she played as she did now—­all the old things that he had ever cared for, with the old passion in them. . . .

And while she played—­he slumbered peacefully.

* * * * *

Jim, when his day of hard work was over, went back to his manager’s house—­all the home he knew—­had a bath, put on clean clothes, ate perfunctorily of roast mutton, and bread and jam, and sat down with his pipe on the top step of his verandah, where he hugged his knees and watched the stars come out.  He was a confirmed old bachelor now, “set”, his sisters said, in his bachelor ways.  None of them lived with him, to keep his house and cheer him up.  It was too dull for them (with the mistress of Redford never there), and besides, he did not want cheering; for himself, he preferred dullness.  An old working housekeeper “did” for him, cooking his simple meals—­eggs and bacon alternating with chops for breakfast, and mutton and bread and jam for his tea-dinner, with a fowl for Sundays—­keeping his few plain rooms clean and his socks mended.  A hundred or two a year must have covered his household expenses; the hundreds remaining of his handsome income went to shore up the weak-kneed of his kindred, who had the habit of falling back on him when their funds ran out, or anything else went wrong with them.

He was a great reader.  Books lined the walls of his otherwise meagrely furnished rooms—­they represented the one personal extravagance that he indulged in—­and newspapers and magazines came by every mail.  In these and in his thoughts he lived, when not intent upon the affairs of the estate, which in the eyes of some appeared wholly to absorb him.  Tonight his thoughts sufficed.  The latest parcel from Mullens’ lay untied, the new American periodicals with wrappers intact.  Deb was home again—­that was enough food for the mind at present.

But, oh, what a home-coming!  His own and only “boss” no longer, as heretofore, but subject to a husband who clearly meant to be his master, and as clearly meant him to have no mistress any more.  Neither in the way of business nor in the way of sentiment could she be again to him what she had been throughout his life—­the altar of his sacrifice, the goddess of his simple worship, his guide, his goal.  He must not hope, nor try, nor even long for her now.  That one last comfort was taken from him.