d the profile of hilltop groves against the sky. The
slopes of the hill wore the fresh green of June pasture lands; and
three colts trotted up to the fence, nickering as they came.... Beth
was staring away Westward through the glorious light. Bedient came
close to her; she felt his eyes upon her face, turned and looked
steadily into them. She was the first to look down. Beth had never seen
his eyes in such strong light, nor such power of control, such
serenity, such a look of inflexible integrity.... She did not like that
control. It was not designed in the least to take away the hate and
burning which for three days had warred against the best resistance of
her mind.

That cool lofty gaze was her portion. Another--on the shore--ignited
the fires. A devil within--for days and nights--had goaded her: "Yes,
Beth Truba, red haired and all that, but old and cold, just the same,
and strange to men."

"I've wanted this day," he said. "It was some need deeper than impulse.
I wanted it just this way: A hill like this, shade of great trees that
whispered, distant towns and woods, horses neighing to ours. Something
more ancient and authoritative than the thing we call Memory, demanded
it this way. Why, I believe we have stood together before."

Beth smiled, for the goading devil had just whispered to her, "You were
a vestal virgin doubtless--oh, severely chaste!"... She said, "You
believe then we have come up through 'a cycle of Cathay'?"

"If I had heard your name, just your name, over there in India," he
replied thoughtfully, "it would have had some deep meaning for me."

"The 'cycle of Cathay' wasn't enough to cure you?"

He turned quickly, but didn't smile. "I think there was always some
distance between us, that we were never equal, a difference like that
between Clarendon and the chestnut. Only you were always above me, and
it was the better, the right way. Beth----"

She looked up.

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't tell you how great you are to
me--just that--asking nothing?"

"We are both grown-ups," she answered readily. "You won't mind if I
find it rather hard to believe--I mean, my greatness. You like my
riding and the portrait----"

"I can judge your riding. As for the picture, it is an inspiration,
though I cannot judge that so well. But it is not those----"

"And what then, pray?"

"Beth Truba."

"A tired old artist whom nobody knows--really."

"I wish you wouldn't say that," he declared earnes