the suppressed interest, went about her home, never dreaming of anything
unusual in the town talk of that day.

The May evening was delicious in its balmy air and the deepening purple
of its twilight haze. The spirit of the springtime, wooing in its tone
of softest music, voiced a message to the sons and daughters of men.
Marjie came out at sunset and slowly took her way through the sweetness
of it all up to the "Rockport" of our childhood, the trysting place of
our days of love's young dream. Her fair face had a womanly strength and
tenderness now, and her form an added grace over the curves of girlhood.
But her hair still rippled about her brow and coiled in the same soft
folds of brown at the back of her head. Her cheeks had still the pink of
the wild rose bloom, and the dainty neatness in dress was as of old.

She came to the rock beyond the bushes and sat down alone looking
dreamily out over the Neosho Valley.

"You'll go to prayer meeting, Phil?" Aunt Candace asked at supper.

"Yes, but I believe I'll go down the street first. Save a place for me.
I want to see Dr. Hemingway next to you of all Springvale." Which was my
second falsehood for that day. I needed prayer meeting.

The sunset hour was more than I could withstand. All the afternoon I had
been subconsciously saying that I must keep close to the realities.
These were all that counted now. And yet when the evening came, all the
past swept my soul and bore every resolve before it. I did not stop to
ask myself any questions. I only knew that, lonely as it must be, I must
go now to "Rockport" as I had done so many times in the old happy past,
a past I was already beginning numbly to feel was dead and gone forever.
And yet my step was firm and my head erect, as with eager tread I came
to the bushes guarding our old happy playground. I only wanted to see it
once more, that was all.

The limp had gone from my foot. It was intermittent in the earlier
years. I was combed and groomed again for social appearing. Aunt Candace
had hung about my tie and the set of my coat, and for my old army
head-gear she had resurrected the jaunty cap I had worn home from
Massachusetts. With my hands in my pockets, whistling softly to abstract
my thoughts, I slipped through the bushes and stood once more on
"Rockport."

And there was Marjie, still looking dreamily out over the valley. She
had not heard my step, so far away were her thoughts. And the picture,
as I stood a moment