Clive had come once more from town to say that he was sailing for
England the following day; that he would be away a month all told, and
that he would return by the middle of August.

They had spent the morning driving together in her buckboard--the
happiest morning perhaps in their lives.

It promised to be a perfect day; and she was so carefree, so
contented, so certain of the world's kindness, so shyly tender with
him, so engagingly humorous at his expense, that the prospect of a
month's separation ceased for the time to appal him.

Concerning his interview with his wife she had asked him nothing; nor
even why he was going abroad. Whether she guessed the truth; whether
she had come to understand the situation through other and occult
agencies, he could not surmise. But one thing was plain enough;
nothing that had happened or that threatened to happen was now
disturbing her. And her gaiety and high spirits were reassuring him
and tranquillising his mind to a degree for which, on reflection, he
could scarcely account, knowing the ultimate hopelessness of their
situation.

Yet her sheer good spirits carried him with her, heart and mind, that
morning. And when it was time for him to go she said good-bye to him
with a smile as tenderly gay and as happy and confident as though he
were to return on the morrow. And went back to her magic house of
dreams and her fairy garden, knowing that, except for him, their
rainbow magic must vanish and the tinted spell fade, and the soft
enchantment dissolve forever leaving at her feet only a sunlit ruin
amid the stillness of desolation.