ning meal Henley saw his wife regarding him
stealthily as she served the food to him and the others. Her look had a
queer, shifting, probing quality, which at any other time would have
inspired investigation, but she failed to rivet his attention to-night.
There were other things to think of--things as new and startling as the
dawn of day must have appeared to the opening eyes of the first man. And
all this had come to him. All these years he had groped in darkness,
seeking and never finding till the dreams of youth were dead. But now
all was lightness, full comprehension, and joy--joy which all but
stifled in its clinging embrace of restitution.

After supper, with a cigar which he forgot to light, he evaded the
tentative chatter of old Wrinkle and sought a rustic seat under a tree
in the yard. Over the meadow, and piercing the shadows which enveloped
him, shone a light from Dixie Hart's kitchen. He fancied that he saw her
at work, her strong, lithe form and glorious face emitting cheer,
courage, and hope to her helpless charges. He wondered if she was
recalling, as he would to the day of his death, the heavenly words she
had spoken at parting. The touch of her velvet lips still lay on his
hand, sending through his every vein streams of sheer ecstasy. Overhead
the sky arched, star-sprinkled, calm, and as full of its untold story as
at the dawn of time.

Inside the kitchen near by Mrs. Henley and Mrs. Wrinkle were washing
dishes. Wrinkle came from a rear door, a swill-pail in hand, and,
bending under its weight, he trudged down to his pigpen at the barn. The
clattering in the kitchen ceased; the light went out, to appear again in
Mrs. Henley's room. Her transported husband saw her through an
uncurtained window. At another time he might have wondered over her
present occupation, for, standing before a mirror, she was giving
unwonted attention to her toilet. She was fastening a flowing scarf
about her neck, pulling at the bow to make it hang to her fancy. She
applied white powder to her cheeks and the faintest hint of pink,
carefully brushing her hair and pulling down her scant bangs as he could
not remember having seen her do since their marriage. Next she threw a
light shawl over her shoulders, experimentally drawing it up under her
sharp chin, as she viewed the effect in the glass, and then settling it,
with final approval, and in easier fashion, farther back upon her
shoulders. He saw her raise her candle and turn he