mes as painful," I added.

"Yet there's no mistake like not cleaning up old mistakes."

"But I hate it," I told him. "It all seems so--so cheap."

"On the contrary," corrected Peter, "it's rather costly." He pulled up
across my path and made me come to a stop. "My dear," he said, very
solemn again, "I know the stuff you're made of. I know you've got to
climb to the light by a path of your own choosing. And you have to see
the light with your own eyes. But I'm willing to wait. I _have_
waited, a very long time. But there's one fact you've got to face: I
love you too much ever to dream of giving you up."

I don't think either of us moved for a full moment. The flute was
singing so loud in my heart that I was afraid of myself. And,
woman-like, I backed away from the thing I wanted.

"It's not _me_, Peter, I must remember now. It's my bairns. I've two
bairns to bring up."

"I've got the three of you to bring up," maintained Peter. And that
made us both sit silent for another moment or two.

"It's not that simple," I finally said, though Peter smiled guardedly
at my ghost of a smile.

"It would be if you cared for me as much as Dinkie does," he said with
quite unnecessary solemnity.

"Oh, Peter, I do, I do," I cried out as the memory of all I owed him
surged mistily through my mind. "But a gray hair is something you
can't joke away. And I've got five of them, right here over my left
ear. I found them, months ago. And they're there to stay!"

"How about my bald spot?" demanded my oppressor and my deliverer
rolled into one.

"What's a bald spot compared to a bob-cat of a temper like mine?" I
challenged, remembering how I'd once heard a revolver-hammer snap in
my husband's face.

"But it's your spirit I like," maintained the unruffled Peter.

"You wouldn't always," I reminded him.

Yet he merely looked at me with his trust-me-and-test-me expression.

"I'll chance it!" he said, after a quite contented moment or two of
meditative silence.

"But don't you see," I went forlornly arguing on, "it mustn't be a
chance. That's something people of our age can never afford to take."

And Peter, at that, for some reason I couldn't fathom, began to wag
his head. He did it slowly and lugubriously, like a man who inspects a
road he has no liking for. But at the same time, apparently, he was
finding it hard to tuck away a small smile of triumph.

"Then we must never see each other again," he solemnly asserted.

"Peter!"