m and solacing herself for his long absence.

Thus the first days were lived through, and no further explanation made,
for something held Cassandra silent in a strange waiting suspense. It
was not hope, for she felt that she had taken a stand which was
conclusive, and there was nothing more for which to hope. What else
could she do, and what could David do? The conditions were made for
them; each must bide in his own world, and she had named the ocean which
divided them, "Death."

At night she did not weep, for weeping made her ill, and she must
conserve her strength for her little son, so she lay staring out at the
stars. Sometimes she found herself holding her breath and
listening,--half lifting her head from her pillow,--but listening for
what? Then she would lean over her baby's cradle, and hear his soft
breathing, trying to make herself think she was listening for that and
not for David's step. Then she would lie back and try again to sleep,
and her heart would cry to God to give her peace, and let her rest. So
the long nights passed, tearlessly and sleeplessly.

On the boat she had slept, lulled by its rocking and swaying, but here
in her home--in her accustomed routine--sleep had fled, and old thoughts
and dreams came like the dead to haunt her. The paleness which had come
upon her in London, and which the sea breeze had supplanted with
fleeting roses, returned, and she moved about looking as if only her
wraith had come back to its old haunts.

On the third day after Cassandra's return, David found himself climbing
the laurel path a far different man from the one who, two years before,
had slowly and wearily toiled up to the little house of logs which was
to be his shelter. With strong, free step and heart uplifted and glad,
he now climbed that winding path. He had conquered the ills of his body,
and his spirit had lived and loved, and he had learned to know happiness
from its counterfeit. He had gone out and seen men chasing phantoms and
shadows thinking therein to find joy--joy--the need of the world--one in
a coronet, one in a crown, and the beggar in a golden sovereign--while
he--he had found it in his own heart and in Cassandra's eyes.

David had passed the Fall Place, seeing no one; for the widow had ridden
over to spend the day with Sally Carew, her niece was in the
spring-house skimming cream, while Cotton was dawdling in the corn patch
whistling and pulling the ripened ears from the stalks. A cool br