homesickness. Very strange.

"She and the man are together constantly. The other day I was in Joseph
Cumberland's room and we heard whistling outside. The face of the old
man lighted, 'They are together again,' he said. 'How do you guess at
that?' I asked. 'By the sound of his whistling,' he answered. 'For he
whistles as if he expected an answer--as if he were talking with
someone.' And by the Lord, the old man was right. It would never have
occurred to me!

"Now as I started down the farther slope of a hill a whistling sound ran
upon me through the wind, and looking back I saw a horseman galloping
with great swiftness along the line of the crest, very plainly outlined
by the sky, and by something of smoothness in the running of the horse I
knew that it was Barry and his black stallion. But the whistling--the
music! Dear God, man, have you read of the pipes of Pan? That night I
heard them and it made a riot in my heart.

"He was gone, suddenly, and the whistling went out like a light, but
something had happened inside me--the first beginning of this process of
internal change. The ground no longer seemed so dark. There were earth
smells--very friendly--I heard some little creature chirruping
contentedly to itself. Something hummed--a grasshopper, perhaps. And
then I looked up to the stars. There was not a name I could think of--I
forgot them all, and for the first time I was contented to look at them
and wonder at their beauty without an attempt at analysis or labelling.

"If I say that I went back to the ranch-house with my feet on the ground
and by heart up there among the stars, will you understand?

"I found the girl sewing in front of the fire in the living room.
Simply looked up to me with a smile, and a certain dimness about the
eyes--well, my breath stopped.

"'Kate,' said I, 'I am going away to-morrow morning!'

"'And leave Dad?' said she.

"'To tell you the truth,' I answered, 'there is nothing I can do for
him. There has never been anything I could do for him.'

"'I am sorry,' said she, and lifted up her eyes to me.

"Now, I had begun by being stiff with her, but the ringing of that
whistling--pipes of Pan, you know--was in my ears. I took a chair beside
her. Something overflowed in my heart. For the first time in whole days
I could look on her beauty without pain.

"'Do you know why I'm going?' I asked.

"She waited.

"'Because,' said I, and smiled right into her face, 'I love you, Kate,
most