d, and it enhanced and altered their gestures
and paces. I felt it became me to say "Peace" to them, and I went
out, to the jangling of the door-bell. At the sight of me they
stopped short, and Verrall cried with the note of one who has
sought, "Here he is!" And Nettie cried, "Willie!"

I went toward them, and all the perspectives of my reconstructed
universe altered as I did so.

I seemed to see these two for the first time; how fine they were,
how graceful and human. It was as though I had never really looked
at them before, and, indeed, always before I had beheld them through
a mist of selfish passion. They had shared the universal darkness
and dwarfing of the former time; they shared the universal exaltation
of the new. Now suddenly Nettie, and the love of Nettie, a great
passion for Nettie, lived again in me. This change which had enlarged
men's hearts had made no end to love. Indeed, it had enormously
enlarged and glorified love. She stepped into the center of that
dream of world reconstruction that filled my mind and took possession
of it all. A little wisp of hair had blown across her cheek, her
lips fell apart in that sweet smile of hers; her eyes were full
of wonder, of a welcoming scrutiny, of an infinitely courageous
friendliness.

I took her outstretched hand, and wonder overwhelmed me. "I wanted
to kill you," I said simply, trying to grasp that idea. It seemed
now like stabbing the stars, or murdering the sunlight.

"Afterward we looked for you," said Verrall; "and we could not find
you. . . . We heard another shot."

I turned my eyes to him, and Nettie's hand fell from me. It was
then I thought of how they had fallen together, and what it must
have been to have awakened in that dawn with Nettie by one's side.
I had a vision of them as I had glimpsed them last amidst the
thickening vapors, close together, hand in hand. The green hawks of
the Change spread their darkling wings above their last stumbling
paces. So they fell. And awoke--lovers together in a morning
of Paradise. Who can tell how bright the sunshine was to them,
how fair the flowers, how sweet the singing of the birds? . . .

This was the thought of my heart. But my lips were saying, "When
I awoke I threw my pistol away." Sheer blankness kept my thoughts
silent for a little while; I said empty things. "I am very glad
I did not kill you--that you are here, so fair and well. . . ."

"I am going away back to Clayton on the day after to-mo