night! When he closed his eyes he could see the light
in his mother's window; and, lower down, the glow of Mahailey's
lamp, where she sat nodding and mending his old shirts. Human
love was a wonderful thing, he told himself, and it was most
wonderful where it had least to gain.

By morning the storm of anger, disappointment, and humiliation
that was boiling in him when he first sat down in the observation
car, had died out. One thing lingered; the peculiarly casual,
indifferent, uninterested tone of his wife's voice when she sent
him away. It was the flat tone in which people make commonplace
remarks about common things.

Day broke with silvery brightness on the summer sage. The sky
grew pink, the sand grew gold. The dawn-wind brought through the
windows the acrid smell of the sagebrush: an odour that is
peculiarly stimulating in the early morning, when it always seems
to promise freedom... large spaces, new beginnings, better
days.

The train was due in Denver at eight o'clock. Exactly at seven
thirty Claude knocked at Enid's door,--this time firmly. She was
dressed, and greeted him with a fresh, smiling face, holding her
hat in her hand.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked.

"Oh, yes! I am perfectly all right this morning. I've put out all
your things for you, there on the seat."

He glanced at them. "Thank you. But I won't have time to change,
I'm afraid."

"Oh, won't you? I'm so sorry I forgot to give you your bag last
night. But you must put on another necktie, at least. You look
too much like a groom."

"Do I?" he asked, with a scarcely perceptible curl of his lip.

Everything he needed was neatly arranged on the plush seat;
shirt, collar, tie, brushes, even a handkerchief. Those in his
pockets were black from dusting off the cinders that blew in all
night, and he threw them down and took up the clean one. There
was a damp spot on it, and as he unfolded it he recognized the
scent of a cologne Enid often used. For some reason this
attention unmanned him. He felt the smart of tears in his eyes,
and to hide them bent over the metal basin and began to scrub his
face. Enid stood behind him, adjusting her hat in the mirror.

"How terribly smoky you are, Claude. I hope you don't smoke
before breakfast?"

"No. I was in the smoking car awhile. I suppose my clothes got
full of it."

"You are covered with dust and cinders, too!" She took the
clothes broom from the rack and began to brush him.

Claude cau