waiting for Miss Whately's return. I sat down to wait also.

The August evening was dry and the day's hot air was rippling now into a
slight breeze. The shadows deepened and the twilight had caught its last
faint glow, when Marjie, white and cold, came slowly up the walk. Her
brown hair lay in little curls about her temples and her big dark eyes
were full of an utterable sorrow. I hurried out to the gate to meet her,
but she would have passed by me with stately step.

"Marjie," I called softly, holding the gate.

"Good-evening, Philip. Please don't speak to me one word." Her voice was
low and sweet as of yore save that it was cold and cutting.

She stood beside me for a moment. "I cannot be detained now. You will
find your mother's ring in a package of letters I shall send you
to-morrow. For my sake as well as for your own, please let this matter
end here without any questions."

"But I will ask you questions," I declared.

"Then they will not be answered. You have deceived me and been untrue to
me. I will not listen to one word. You may be very clever, but I
understand you now. This is the end of everything for you and me." And
so she left me.

I stood at the gate only long enough to hear her cordial greeting of
Tillhurst. My Marjie, my own, had turned against me. The shadows of the
deepening twilight turned to horrid shapes, and all the purple richness
with that deep crimson fold low in the western sky became a chill gloom
bordered on the horizon by the flame of hate. So the glory of a world
gone wrong slips away, and the creeping shadows are typical only of
pain and heartache.

I turned aimlessly away. I had told Marjie she was the light of my life:
I did not understand the truth of the words until the light went out.
Heavily, as I had staggered toward her mother's house on the night when
I was sure Jean Pahusca had stolen her, I took my way now into the
gathering shadows, slowly, to where I could hear the Neosho whispering
and muttering in the deep gloom.

It comes sometimes to most of us, the wild notion that life, the gift of
God alone, is a cheap thing not worth the keeping, and the impulse to
fling it away uprears its ugly suggestion. Out in a square of light by
the ford I saw Dave Mead standing, looking straight before him. The
sorrows of the day were not all mine. I went to him, and we stood there
silent together. At length we turned about in a purposeless way toward
the open West Prairie. How many