To-day
nothing was changed, and everything.

Then, out of a clear sky, he said:

"I may be going away before long, Elizabeth."

He was watching her intently. She had a singular feeling that behind
this, as behind everything that afternoon, was something not spoken.
Something that related to her. Perhaps it was because of his tone.

"You don't mean-not to stay?"

"No. I want to go back to Wyoming. Where I was born. Only for a few
weeks."

And in that "only for a few weeks" there lay some of the unspoken
things. That he would miss her and come back quickly to her. That she
would miss him, and that subconsciously he knew it. And behind that,
too, a promise. He would come back to her.

"Only for a few weeks," he repeated. "I thought perhaps, if you wouldn't
mind my writing to you, now and then--I write a rotten hand, you know.
Most medical men do."

"I should like it very much," she said, primly.

She felt suddenly very lonely, as though he had already gone, and
slightly resentful, not at him but at the way things happened. And then,
too, everyone knew that once a Westerner always a Westerner. The West
always called its children. Not that she put it that way. But she had
a sort of vision, gained from the moving pictures, of a country of wide
spaces and tall mountains, where men wore quaint clothing and the women
rode wild horses and had the dash she knew she lacked. She was stirred
by vague jealousy.

"You may never come back," she said, casually. "After all, you were born
there, and we must seem very quiet to you."

"Quiet!" he exclaimed. "You are heavenly restful and comforting. You--"
he checked himself and got up. "Then I'm to write, and you are to make
out as much of my scrawl as you can and answer. Is that right?"

"I'll write you all the town gossip."

"If you do--!" he threatened her. "You're to write me what you're doing,
and all about yourself. Remember, I'll be counting on you."

And, if their voices were light, there was in both of them the sense
of a pact made, of a bond that was to hold them, like clasped hands,
against their coming separation. It was rather anti-climacteric after
that to have him acknowledge that he didn't know exactly when he could
get away!

She went with him to the door and stood there, her soft hair blowing, as
he got into the car. When he looked back, as he turned the corner, she
was still there. He felt very happy affable, and he picked up an elderly
village woman w