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 effect. What would she be like now? He wished he could ask Sheilah if she had ever known Cicely Morgan. But it might lead to an explanation.

Strange Cicely had never married. Strange he had never married himself. He had so positively intended to once. It might have worked. It might, anyway, have been better than living alone all these years. Children, home, roots. As it was, simply friends, companions, good-fellowship. Wanted everywhere. Indispensable nowhere. Surprising he'd never met any one since Cicely whom he'd wanted to marry. He had thought he would. He had hoped he would. He had never met any one who had even stirred his imagination until—until

Roger glanced at Sheilah. Her hand, upturned, lay across her eyes, closed now, the fingers curled like the petals of a lotus-flower. She was asleep perhaps. Once before she had fallen asleep beside him like that, her eyes hidden from him, as if she were shy of letting him see them closed. He closed his own, sharing her darkness.

Finally in a low tone, 'Asleep?' he inquired.

'Of course not!' instantly and indignantly she assured him.

'I've thought of something else the pine sounds like,' he remarked from behind closed lids.