l to-morrow, if I could," Barrie replied.

"Perhaps you can," Aline said, radiant, drying her tears.

* * * * *

Basil persuaded himself that he would have been less than man if he
refused to accept his happiness, even though he could have wished it to
come to him spontaneously. But nothing, as Aline anxiously reminded him,
can be ideal in this world. And it wasn't as if it were certain that
Somerled would have married the girl if they had been let alone.

"We shall never know now what he _would_ have done," she said, "and I
for one don't want to know. I want to know only what he will _do_. Even
if he has been a little--infatuated, why, you told me yourself that
hearts are often caught in the rebound. I shall try so hard."

"But you are going away with us!" Basil said quickly. "You must."

"Oh, I will. I wouldn't trust you alone--to keep Barrie. But afterward I
shall write him a letter. Such a letter! Of course, we've all three
quite decided now" (it was she, and Basil reluctantly, who had decided)
"merely to tell him that we're obliged to take Barrie back to her
mother; that Mrs. Bal would hear of nothing else. And it won't be a lie,
because as soon as you're married, you will take her to see Barbara.
Morgan Bennett will be gone, so Mrs. Bal won't mind--much. Have you
decided where the wedding is to be?"

"Gretna Green," Basil answered with such prompt decision that Aline was
surprised.

"Why Gretna Green? It's such a long way," she objected, impatient for
the afterward, which was to be her reward. "I thought one place was as
good as another in Scotland nowadays, and that----"

"I've a special reason for wanting to be married to Barrie at Gretna
Green," said Basil, almost fiercely. "For one thing, she's told me that
it used to be a dream of hers. For another----"

"For another?"

"No matter. Only a fancy of mine--to rub out the recollection of
something I don't like. Of course, if Barrie objects--but I hope she
won't."

Barrie did not object in words. Only her heart rebelled. But her one
great wish was to put her heart to sleep. And nothing else mattered.
Nothing else must matter now.

IV

BARRIE WRITES AGAIN

This never was a story. I wrote things down, to please myself, just as
they happened. But now that the end of the heather moon has come, I must
write of its last days. I think by and by I shall send all this to Mrs.
James, in California, otherwise she will