ished it out. It was Marette's
little pack, and for many minutes before he opened it Kent crushed the
sodden treasure to his breast, staring with half-mad eyes down where he
had found it, as if Marette must be there, too. Then he ran with it to
an open space, where the sun fell warmly on a great, flat rock that was
level with the ground, and with sobbing breath he opened it. It was
filled with the things she had picked up quickly in her room the night
of their flight from Kedsty's bungalow, and as he drew them out one by
one and placed them in the sun on the rock, a new and sudden rush of
life swept through his veins, and he sprang to his feet and faced the
river again, as if at last a hope had come to him. Then he looked down
again upon what she had treasured, and reaching out his arms to them,
he whispered,

"Marette--my little goddess--"

Even in his grief the overwhelming mastery of his love for the one who
was dead brought a smile to his haggard and bearded face. For Marette,
in filling her little pack on that night of hurried flight, had chosen
strange things. On the sunlit rock, where he had placed them, were a
pair of the little pumps which he had fallen on his knees to worship in
her room, and with these she had crowded into the pack one of the
billowing, sweet-smelling dresses which had made his heart stand still
for a moment when he first looked into their hiding-place. It was no
longer soft and cobwebby as it had been then, like down fluttering
against his cheeks, but sodden and discolored, as it lay on the rock
with little rivulets of water running from it.

With the shoes and the dress were the intimate necessities which
Marette had taken with her. But it was one of the pumps that Kent
picked up and crushed close to his ragged breast--one of the two she
had worn that first wonderful day she had come to see him at Cardigan's
place.

This hour was the beginning of another change in Kent. It seemed to him
that a message had come to him from Marette herself, that the spirit of
her had returned to him and was with him now, stirring strange things
in his soul and warming his blood with a new heat. She was gone
forever, and yet she had come back to him, and the truth grew upon him
that this spirit of her would never leave him again as long as he
lived. He felt her nearness. Unconsciously he reached out his arms, and
a strange happiness entered Into him to battle with grief and
loneliness. His eyes shone with