to the wind in the pines until you don't know which
is the wind and which is you....

"It couldn't last forever. After a while something like a little point
of pain began worrying my mind.

"'But there won't be.... This is good-bye,' I cried.

"'Don't you believe it,' he said. 'God Himself couldn't make us say
good-bye again.' He got up and drew me with him. It was quite dark now
except for the fire, and his eyes ... they were like those of the Djinns
who were made out of elemental fire instead of earth. 'You'll come to me
in the blessed sunshine,' he said, 'and in music, and in the best
impulses of my own soul. If I were an old-fashioned lover I should
promise to wait for you in heaven.... Betty, Betty, I have you in heaven
now and forever!' ... I felt his cheek on mine. Then he was gone. That
was all; that was every bit of all."

"And he had that to live on for the rest of his life." Hugh broke the
silence under his breath. "Well, thank God he had _something_!"

The little woman fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and shamelessly
dried her eyes. As she moved, a brown object fell from the corner of the
couch across her lap. Hugh held his hand out for the morocco portfolio.

"It seems to have the homing instinct," he observed; then, abruptly,
"Wait a moment; I'm going to call them back." He paused, as usual,
before his favourite confidant, the window. "The larger consciousness,
the Universal Togetherness," he muttered. "I really believe he must have
touched it that once. O Lord! how--" His spacious vocabulary gave it up.

When he followed his uncle and aunt into the room Mrs. Shirley came
forward, her thin veil again covering her face.

"I must go," she said. "Thank you once more for letting me come."

With a curious young touch of solemnity Hugh laid the brown case in her
hands. "This belongs to you," he said, "and I wanted them to see you
receive it."

* * * * *

"And you intend to permit this, Winthrop?"

Miss Fowler turned on her brother. She had suppressed her emotions
before the intruder; she had even said some proper things without unduly
speeding the parting guest. But if you can't be hateful to your own
family, to whom, in the name of the domestic pieties, can you be
hateful?

Mr. Fowler swiveled on her the glassy eye of one who does not suffer
fools gladly. "I permit anything," he responded, icily, "that will keep
that boy ... sane." He retired anew behind the m