some such idea as that, too. I
overheard him givin' it to old Hilary once, up at Fairview, and Hilary
said he couldn't control him. I guess nobody else can control him. I
wish I'd seen him kick Ham downstairs."

"I'd like to kick him downstairs," said Mr. Billings, savagely biting
off another cigar.

"I guess you hadn't better try it, Nat," said Mr. Bascom.

Meanwhile Austen had returned to his own office, and shut the door. His
luncheon hour came and went, and still he sat by the open window gazing
out across the teeming plain, and up the green valley whence the Blue
came singing from the highlands. In spirit he followed the water to
Leith, and beyond, where it swung in a wide circle and hurried between
wondrous hills like those in the backgrounds of the old Italians: hills
of close-cropped pastures, dotted with shapely sentinel oaks and maples
which cast sharp, rounded shadows on the slopes at noonday; with thin
fantastic elms on the gentle sky-lines, and forests massed here and
there--silent, impenetrable hills from a story-book of a land of
mystery. The river coursed between them on its rocky bed, flinging
its myriad gems to the sun. This was the Vale of the Blue, and she had
touched it with meaning for him, and gone.

He drew from his coat a worn pocket-book, and from the pocket-book a
letter. It was dated in New York in February, and though he knew it by
heart he found a strange solace in the pain which it gave him to reread
it. He stared at the monogram on the paper, which seemed so emblematic
of her; for he had often reflected that her things--even such minute
insignia as this--belonged to her. She impressed them not only with
her taste, but with her character. The entwined letters, Y. F., of the
design were not, he thought, of a meaningless, frivolous daintiness, but
stood for something. Then he read the note again. It was only a note.

"MY DEAR MR. VANE: I have come back to find my mother ill, and I am
taking her to France. We are sailing, unexpectedly, to-morrow,
there being a difficulty about a passage later. I cannot refrain
from sending you a line before I go to tell you that I did you an
injustice. You will no doubt think it strange that I should write
to you, but I shall be troubled until it is off my mind. I am
ashamed to have been so stupid. I think I know now why you would
not consent to be a candidate, and I respect you for it.

"Sincerely your frien