y can shape themselves to their
own good ends. Sylvie can shape yours with you, Pete." He hesitated a
moment. "If a coward, a murderer, can say 'God bless you,' take that
blessing!"

He picked up his gun and shuffled across the floor, flinching aside from
Bella as though he could bear no further touch or word, and went out of
the door, letting in the brightness of the sunrise.

Pete had sunk into a chair, faint from the shock and weakness of his
wound; and Sylvie bent over him. For a minute, in great and bitter
loneliness Bella stood and watched them; then she followed Hugh.

He had put down his gun and gone slowly up from the hollow and was
walking along the river-bank. He had the look of a man who strolls in
meditation. When he came to his boat where it lay near the roots of the
three big pines, he turned it over--he had been mending its bottom the
morning of yesterday--and began to push it down toward the plunging
stream. The glitter of morning took all the swirlings and ripplings
and plungings of the swift water in its golden hands. Hugh steadied the
boat. Above him on the bank Bella spoke quietly.

"Hugh," she said, "look up at me. What are you going to do?"

He lifted his face, still holding to the boat.

"What are you going to do?" she repeated.

"Why do you want to know? You've heard the truth."

She came down the bank and stood beside him so close that her hair,
loosened by the wind, was blown against his shoulder. She pressed it
back and gazed into his eyes. The inner glow had worn through at last.
She was all warmth, all flame now. She smiled with soft and parted lips.
"Do you think that was the truth of you, my dear," she said, "_my_ truth
of you? I have always seen you as you are. But"--she drew a big breath,
like a climber who has reached the height--"but--I came to you, didn't
I?"

Hugh's eyes widened, the pupils swallowing her light. "You--you came to
me? Not for Pete's sake?"

"Never for his sake."

"But, Bella--you laughed at me."

"Yes, once, for your poor folly in trying to be what you are not. When
have I ever laughed at what you are? It's what you are I've loved, my
dear, just what you are--a tormented child. Only be honest with me,
Hugh. Tell me what do you want: the moon now or--or all the truth?"

"I want the truth--and the end," he said. "I'm going down the river."

She glanced at the flood as though it were a brook. "I am going with you
then. You must take me. My life has alwa