vered around us, curious as gulls around a floating
plank.

And all this time--from the very instant of departure, through three
days and a night of screaming winds and cataracts of water, through the
delays where we rode at anchor below the Chain and Dobbs Ferry, under a
vertical sun that started the pitch in every seam--Elsin Grey, radiant,
transfigured, drenched to the skin, faced storm and calm in an ecstasy
of reckless happiness.

Wild winds from the north, shouting among the mountains, winds of the
forests, that tore the cries of exultation from our lips and scattered
sound into space, winds of my own northland that poured through our
veins, cleansing us of sordid care and sad regret and doubt, these were
the sorcerers that changed us back to children while the dull roaring
of their incantations filled the world. We two alone on earth, and the
vast, veiled world spread round, outstretching to the limits of
eternity, all ours to conquer, ours for our pleasure, ours to reign in
till the moon cracked and the stars faded, and the sun went down
forever and a day, and all was chaos save for the blazing trail of
blessed souls, soaring to glory through the majesty of endless night.

In the sunlit calms, riding at our moorings, much we discussed eternity
and creation. Doctrines once terrible seemed now harmless and without
menace, dogmas dissolved into thinnest air, blown to the nothingness
from whence they came; for, strangely, all teachings and creeds and
laws of faith narrowed to the oldest of precepts; and, ponder and
question as we might, citing prophet and saint and holy men inspired,
all came to the same at last, expressed in that cardinal precept so
safe in its simplicity--the one law embodied in one word governing
heaven and commanding earth.

"Aye," said she, "but how interpret it? For a misstep means certain
damnation, Carus. Once when I spelled out 'Love' for you, I stumbled
and should have fallen had you not held me up."

"You held _me_ up, sweetheart! I was closer to the brink than you."

She looked thoughtfully at the fortress; the shore was so near that,
through the calm darkness, we could hear the sentinels calling from
post to post and the ripple of the Hudson at the base of the rocks.

But these conferences concerning the philosophy of ethics overweighted
two hearts as young as ours; and while our new love and the happiness
of it at times reacted in solemn argument and the naive searching of
our