nvulsive throbbing of her throat was laid bare. The two marvelous and
mismated eyes looked at them all and did not see them. The sister of
Hamilton Burton, the woman whom two continents had toasted, was seeing
other things. "Let me pass," she commanded, and they stood aside and saw
her go out into the gathering night and the blizzard.

Smitherton rushed after her.

"Let me at least put you in a taxi'," he pleaded, but she shook her
head.

"You can do only one thing now," she said. "For God's sake, leave me
alone."

Though he knew she was in no condition to be left to herself, the spell
of those eyes was upon him, too. It was impossible to disobey. He stood
there and saw her turn the corner, buffeted by the wind, and disappear.

Then he became conscious of a newsboy's shrieking: "Last 'dition--All
'bout the Burton trad-egy!"

Part III

THE MOUNTAIN TOP

THE STORY THAT WAS

CHAPTER XXXV

It was a June day with the sparkle and lilt of summer's brightest and
tunefulest mood in the sky and a softness and warmth in the air. The
most distant peaks of the mountains slept in a quiet and purple glory
and their nearer slopes still held a forest-freshness undulled by heat
and sunburn.

Deep in the woods of the White Mountains the wild flowers were springing
joyously and the birds were pouring out the fulness of life and joy and
love from trilling throats.

The waters of Lake Forsaken were like a mirror holding in their still
bosom all the vivid color which summer paints into its first and
sweetest days while an after-note of spring's youth still lingers. The
blue of the sky was broken only by white cloud-sails that rode high and
buoyant in the upper air currents, like galleons of dreams, and all
these things were given back in reflection from depths where the bass
leaped and the sun shimmered. On the lake's farther margin a red-brown
shape came down with careful feet gingerly lifted and set down, to raise
its antlered head. But the gentle eyes were not charged with fear, for
this was a season of security and truce with mankind.

If the world held trouble anywhere, no shadow of its passing riffled or
marred the landscape here. And yet in this smile and song of nature,
there must be a certain disregard for human affairs, because the
movement which held the deer's gaze, as he stood there at the water's
edge, looking across the width of Lake Forsaken, was the movement of
human beings trailing along the road in