eath's wings always in the air, how can any one--I do not wish to be
angry. If you choose we will talk like friends--like a man and a woman
of the South. If you do not, I can but shut my ears and hasten home and
henceforth be too wise to give you opportunity--"

"I go back to the front to-morrow. Be patient with me these few minutes.
And I, Judith--I will cling with all my might to the tree--"

A touch like sunlight came upon him of his old fine grace, charming,
light, and strong. "I won't let go! How lovely it is, and still--the elm
tops dreaming! And beyond that gold sky and the mountains all the
fighting! Let us go through the graveyard. It is so still--and all their
troubles are over."

Within the graveyard, too, was an old bench around an elm. "A few
minutes only!" pleaded Stafford. "Presently I must ride back to
town--and in the morning I return to the Valley." They sat down. Before
them was a flat tombstone sunk in ivy, a white rose at the head.
Stafford, leaning forward, drew aside with the point of his scabbard the
dark sprays that mantled the graved coat of arms.

LUDWELL CARY

_In part I sleep. I wake within the whole._

He let the ivy swing back. "I have seen many die this year who wished
to live. If death were forgetfulness! I do not believe it. I shall
persist, and still feel the blowing wind--"

"Listen to the cow-bells!" said Judith. "There shows the evening star."

"Can a woman know what love is? This envelope of the soul--If I could
but tear it! Judith, Judith! Power and longing grow in the very air I
breathe!--will to move the universe if thereby I might gain you!--your
presence always with me in waves of light and sound! and you cannot
truly see nor hear me! Could you do so, deep would surely answer deep!"

"Do you not know," she said clearly, "that I love Richard Cleave? You do
not attract me. You repel me. There are many souls and many deeps, and
the ocean to which I answer knows not your quarter of the universe!"

"Do you love him so? I will work him harm if I can!"

She rose. "I have been patient long enough.--No! not with me, if you
please! I will go alone. Let me pass, Major Stafford!--"

She was gone, over the dark trailing periwinkle, through the little gate
canopied with honeysuckle. For a minute he stayed beneath the elms,
calling himself fool and treble fool; then he followed, though at a
little distance. She went before him, in her pale vio