when?"

"In October, perhaps." Slowly the color crept to her temples. "It
is so beautiful here in October. There isn't a month in all the year
it will not hurt to leave." Sudden tears were in her eyes. "But it
would hurt worse not to be--with--you. They were very long,
Winthrop, the winter months that followed Christmas. You have very
poor manners. You should have written first and told me you had
enjoyed yourself instead of telling--"

"What I could no longer keep back? There was no time for manners. I
had to know."

"But you didn't, and because I couldn't tell you. Before, I have
always been so quick to know. To go away--with just you! I had to
be so certain there was no other way of happiness." In the darkness
she shivered slightly, and Laine drew her into his arms and held her
close.

"Perhaps"--her voice was so low he had to bend his head to hear
it--"perhaps it is because we are apart from the things that make one
forget that I have thought more about what it should mean--what
marriage should mean--than I might have done had there been no time
to think. It is forever, Winthrop, this life that we are entering.
Are we very, very sure there's love enough to last?"

"I am very sure, Claudia." He lifted her hands to his lips and
kissed them. "For me your love will make of life a--"

"Land that is not lonely?" Under her breath she laughed, to hide the
sob in her throat. "Oh, Winthrop Laine, it is what love is for! And
no one's land is lonely when there is love enough!"

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LONELY LAND***

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