like those who approach a narrow

James Murchison and his wife had held each other’s hands more firmly, like those who approach a narrow mountain path. They were happy in their home life, happy with each other, and with their children. To the woman’s share there was added a new sacredness that woke and grew with every dawn. There were wounds to be healed, bitternesses to be warded off. The man who lay in her arms at night needed her more dearly, and there was exultation in the thought for her. She loved him the more for this stern thorn in the flesh. The pity of it seemed to make him more her own , to knit her tenderness more bravely round him, to fill life with a more sacred fire. She was not afraid of the future for his sake, believing him too strong to be vanquished by an ancestral sin.































































































































It was one day in April when James Murchison came rattling over the Roxton cobbles in his motor-car, to slacken speed suddenly in Chapel Gate at the sight of a red Dutch bonnet, a green frock, and a pair of white-socked legs on the edge of the pavement. The Dutch bonnet belonged to his daughter Gwen, a flame-haired dame of four, demure and serious as any dowager. The child had a chip-basket full of daffodils in her hand , and she seemed quite alone, a most responsible young person.































































































































Her father had one eye on the child as he steered the car through the market-place and past St. Antonia’s into Lombard Street. The youth in him revolted from administering moral physic to Miss Gwen. Even the florist seemed to have treated her pennies with generous respect, and like the majority of sympathetic males, Murchison left the dogmatic formalities of education to his wife. The very flowers, the child’s offering, would have withered at any tactless chiding.































































































































Mary, the darner of Mr. Jack’s stockings, was discovered waddling up Lombard Street with flat-footed haste. Miss Gwen greeted her with the composure of an empress, proud of her flowers, her father, the motor-car, and life in general. To Mary’s “Oh—Miss Gwen!” she answered with a sedate giggle and hugged her basket of flowers.































































































































Murchison saw his wife’s figure framed between the white posts of the doorway. He chuckled as he reached for his instrument bag under the seat, and caught a glimpse of Mary’s outraged authority .