ouded, the flats below. Beyond the reaches of
silver gray, the more distant hills rose in mystic shadow-shapes of
deep cobalt. There were stars overhead, but they were pale in the
whiter light of the moon, and all the world was painted, as the moon
will paint it, in silvers and blues.

Back of them was the softened waltz-music that drifted from the
club-house and the bright patches of color where the Chinese lanterns
swung among the trees.

As they talked, the man felt with renewed force that the girl had
given him her love in the wonderful way of one who gives but once, and
gives all without stint or reserve. It was as though she had presented
him unconditionally with the key to the archives of her heart, and
made him possessor of the unspent wealth of all the Incas.

Suddenly, he realized that his plan of leaving her without
explanation, on a quest that might permit no return, was meeting her
gift with half-confidence and deception. What he did with himself now,
he did with her property. He was not at liberty to act without her
full understanding and sympathy in his undertakings. The plan was one
of infinite brutality.

He must tell her everything, and then go. He struck a match for his
cigar, to give himself a moment of arranging his words, and, as he
stood shielding the light against a faintly stirring breeze, the
miniature glare fell on her delicately chiseled lips and nose and
chin. Her expression made him hesitate. She was very young, very
innocently childlike and very happy. To tell her now would be like
spoiling a little girls' party. It must be told soon, but not while
the dance music was still in their ears and the waxy smell of the
dance candles still in their nostrils.

When he left her at Horton House, he did not at once return to the
cabin. He wanted the open skies for his thoughts, and there was no
hope of sleep.

He retraced his steps from the road, and wandered into the
old-fashioned garden. At last, he halted by the seat where he had
posed her for the portrait. The moon was sinking, and the shadows of
the garden wall and trees and shrubs fell in long, fantastic angles
across the silvered earth. The house itself was dark except where the
panes of her window still glowed. Standing between the tall stalks of
the hollyhocks, he held his watch up to the moon. It was half-past two
o'clock.

Then, he looked up and started with surprise as he saw her standing
in the path before him. At first, he tho