resently, and greeted him
with such a splendid high-born way, so simple and so unaffected that
he marveled at her self-control, feeling his own heart pulsing
strangely at sight of her. In the few months that had elapsed how
changed she was and how beautiful! This was not the romantic, yet
buffeted, beautiful girl who had come so near being the tragedy of
his old life? How womanly she now was, and how calm and at her ease!
Could independence and the change from poverty and worry, the strong,
free feeling of being one's self again and in one's sphere, make so
great a difference in so short a while? He wondered at himself for
not seeing farther ahead. He had come to bid her good-bye and offer
again--this time in all earnestness and sincerity, to take her with
him--to share his life--but the words died in his mouth.

He could no more have said them than he could have profanely touched
her.

When he left she walked with him to the parting of the ways.

The blue line of tremulous mountain was scrolled along a horizon that
flamed crimson in the setting sun. A flock of twilight clouds--flamingos
of the sky--floated toward the sunset as if going to roost. Beyond was
the great river, its bosom as wan, where it lay in the shadow of the
mountain, as Richard Travis's own cheek; but where the sunset fell on it
the reflected light turned it to pink which to him looked like Helen's.

The wind came down cool from the frost-tinctured mountain side, and the
fine sweet odor of life everlasting floated in it--frost-bitten--and
bringing a wave of youth and rabbit hunts and of a life of dreams and
the sweet unclouded far-off hope of things beautiful and immortal. And
the flow of it hurt Richard Travis--hurt him with a tenderness that
bled.

The girl stopped and drank in the beauty of it all, and he stood looking
at her, "the picture for the frame"--as he said to himself.

It had rained and the clouds were scattered, yet so full that they
caught entirely the sunset rays and held them as he would that moment
have loved to hold her. Something in her--something about her thrilled
him strangely, as he had often been thrilled when looking at the great
pictures in the galleries of the old world. He repeated softly to her,
as she stood looking forward--to him--into the future:

"What thou art we know not,
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showe