ering his Gethsemane. Neither one of them slept much that night.

In the early dawning Courtland arose, dressed, and silently stole out of
the room, down through the sleeping city, out to the country, where he
had gone once before when trouble struck him. It seemed to him he must
get away to breathe, he must go where he and God could be alone.

Pat understood. He only waited till Courtland was gone to fling on his
clothes in a hurry and be after him. He had noted from the window the
direction taken, and guessed where he would be.

On and on walked Courtland with the burning sorrow in his soul; out
through the heated city, over the miles of dusty road, his feet finding
their way without apparent direction from his mind; out to the stream,
and the path where wild flowers and grasses had strewn the ground in
springtime; gay now with white and purple asters. The rocks wore vines
of crimson, and goldenrod was full of bees and yellow butterflies.
Gnarled roots bore little creeping tufts of squawberry with bright, red
berries dotting thick between. But Courtland passed on and saw it not.

Above, the sky was deepest blue and flecked with summer clouds.
Loud-voiced birds called gaily of the summer's ending, talked of travel
in a glad, gay lilt. The bees droned on; the bullfrogs gave forth a deep
wise thought or two; while softly, deeply, brownly, flowed the stream
beside the path, with only a far, still fisherman here and there who
noticed not. But Courtland heard nothing, saw nothing but the dark of
his Gethsemane. For every nodding goldenrod and saucy purple aster was
but a bright-winged thought to him to bring back the saucy, lovely face
of Gila. She belonged now to another. He had not realized before how
fully he had chosen, how lost she was to him, until another, and that
his best friend, had taken her for his own. Not that he repented his
decision or drew back. Oh no! He could not have chosen otherwise. Yet
now, face to face with the truth, he realized that he had always hoped,
even when he walked away from her, that she would find the Christ and
one day they would come together again. Now that hope was gone forever.
She might find the Christ, he hoped--yes, hoped and prayed she
would!--it was a wish apart from his personal loss, but she could never
summon him now, for she had given herself to another!

He gained at last the rock-bound refuge where he knelt once before. Pat,
coming later from afar, saw his old Panama ly