ouse, where Nancy had wondered
her way to womanhood. Empty now it was, darkened as those years of her
dreaming girlhood must be to the present. Should she enter it, she knew
the house would murmur with echoes of other days; there would be the
wraith of the girl she once was flitting as of old through its peopled
rooms.

And out there actually before her was the stretch of lawn where she had
played games of tragic pretense with the imperious, dreaming boy.
Vividly there came back that late afternoon when the monster of Bernal's
devising had frightened them for the last time--when in a sudden flash
of insight they had laughed the thing away forever and faced each other
with a certain half-joyous, half-foolish maturity of understanding. One
day long after this she had humorously bewailed to Bernal the loss of
their child's faith in the Gratcher. He had replied that, as an
institution, the Gratcher was imperishable--that it was brute humanity's
instinctive negation to the incredible perfections of life; that while
the child's Gratcher was not the man's, the latter was yet of the same
breed, however it might be refined by the subtleties of maturity: that
the man, like the child, must fashion some monster of horror to deter
him when he hears God's call to live.

She had not been able to understand, nor did she now. She was looking
out to the two trees where once her hammock had swung--to the rustic
chair, now falling apart from age, from which Bernal had faced her that
last evening. Then with a start she was back in the present. Nancy of
the old days must be shut fat in the old house. There she might wander
and wonder endlessly among the echoes and the half-seen faces, but never
could she come forth; over the threshold there could pass only the wife
of Allan Linford.

Quick upon this realisation came a sharp fear of the man beside her--a
fear born of his hand's hold upon hers when they had met. She shrank
under the memory of it, with a sudden instinct of the hunted. Then from
her new covert of reserve she dared to peer cautiously at him, seeking
to know how great was her peril--to learn what measure of defense would
best insure her safety--recognising fearfully the traitor in her own
heart.

Their first idle talk had died, and she noted with new alarm that they
had been silent for many minutes. This could not safely be--this
insidious, barrier-destroying silence. She seemed to hear his heart
beating high from his own sen