er accept his
terms and face the world with him as his wife. And so he must give her
up. For he believed that, in him, the instinct of moral law had been too
carefully developed ever to be deliberately ignored; he still believed
marriage to be not only a rational social procedure, not only a human
compromise and a divine convention, but the only possible sanctuary
where love might dwell, and remain, and permanently endure inviolate.

CHAPTER XIV

The Countess Helene had taken her maid and gone to New York on business
for a day or two, leaving Valerie to amuse herself until her return.

Which was no hardship for Valerie. The only difficulty lay in there
being too much to do.

In the first place she had become excellent friends with the farmer and
had persuaded him to delegate to her a number of his duties. She had to
collect the newly laid eggs, hunt up stolen nests, inspect and feed the
clucking, quacking, gobbling personnel of the barnyard which came
crowding to her clear-voiced call.

As for the cattle, she was rather timid about venturing to milk since
the Ogilvy's painful and undignified debut as an amateur Strephon.

However, she assisted at pasture call accompanied by a fat and lazy
collie; and she petted and salted the herd to her heart's content.

Then there were books and magazines to be read, leisurely; and hammocks
to lie in, while her eyes watched the sky where clouds sailed in snowy
squadrons out of the breezy west.

And what happier company for her than her thoughts--what tenderer
companionship than her memories; what more absorbing fellowship than the
little busy intimate reflections that came swarming around her, more
exciting, more impetuous, more exquisitely disturbing as the hurrying,
sunny hours sped away and the first day of June drew nigh?

She spent hours alone on the hill behind the house, lying full length in
the fragrant, wild grasses, looking across a green and sunlit world
toward Ashuelyn.

[Illustration: "And what happier company for her than her thoughts--what
tenderer companionship than her memories?"]

She had told him not to attempt to come to Estwich; and, though she knew
she had told him wisely, often and often there on her breezy hilltop she
wished that she hadn't--wished that he would disregard her
request--hoped he would--lay there, a dry grass stem between her lips,
thinking how it would be if, suddenly, down there by--well, say down by
that big oak, for exampl