for it
anyhow, short of actually running away from duty."

"You need it, I know. We'll just leave all care behind and remember
nothing except how happy we are to be together. That never grows old,
does it, Red?"

"Never!" He spoke almost with solemnity, and gave her a long look as he
said it, which she met with one to match it. "You dear!" he murmured.
"Len, do you know I never loved you so well as I do to-day?"

"I wonder why?" She was smiling, and her colour, always duskily soft in
her cheek, grew a shade warmer. "Is it the brown tweeds?"

"It's the brown tweeds, and the midnight-dark hair, and the beautiful
black eyes, and--the lovely soul of my wife."

"Why, Red, dear--and all this so early in the morning? How will you end
if you begin like this?"

"I don't know--or care." Something strange looked out of his eyes for a
minute. "I know what I want to say now and I'm saying it. So much of the
time I'm too busy to make love to my wife, I'm going to do it
to-day--all day. I warn you now, so you can sidetrack me if you get
tired of it."

"I'm very likely to," she said with a gay tenderness. "To have you make
love to me without the chance of a telephone call to break in will be a
wonderful treat."

"It sure will to me."

It was a significant beginning to a strange day. They drove for twenty
miles, to find a certain place upon a bluff overlooking a small lake of
unusual beauty, far out of the way of the ordinary motor traveller.
They climbed a steep hill, coming out of the wooded hillside into the
full sunlight of the late October day, where spread an extended view of
the countryside, brilliant with autumn foliage. The air was crisp and
invigorating, and a decided breeze was stirring upon this lofty point,
so that the windbreak which Burns began at once to build was a necessary
protection if they were to remain long.

An hour of hard work, at which Ellen helped as much as she was allowed,
established a snug camp, its back against a great bowlder, its windward
side sheltered by a thick barrier of hemlocks cleverly placed, a brisk
bonfire burning in an angle where an improvised chimney carried off its
smoke and left the corner clear and warm.

"There!" Burns exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction as he threw himself
down upon the pine needle-strewn ground at Ellen's side. "How's this for
a comfortable nest? Think we can spend six contented hours here, my
honey?"

"Six days if you like. How I wish we could!"

"