ing in the air. The sorrel, turning the same big ringed eye
on him, nuzzled the palm of his hand in the same way; and one by one all
the days between rose up and stood before him...

He flung the bearskin into the sleigh, climbed to the seat, and drove up
to the house. When he entered the kitchen it was empty, but Mattie's bag
and shawl lay ready by the door. He went to the foot of the stairs and
listened. No sound reached him from above, but presently he thought he
heard some one moving about in his deserted study, and pushing open the
door he saw Mattie, in her hat and jacket, standing with her back to him
near the table.

She started at his approach and turning quickly, said: "Is it time?"

"What are you doing here, Matt?" he asked her.

She looked at him timidly. "I was just taking a look round--that's all,"
she answered, with a wavering smile.

They went back into the kitchen without speaking, and Ethan picked up
her bag and shawl.

"Where's Zeena?" he asked.

"She went upstairs right after dinner. She said she had those shooting
pains again, and didn't want to be disturbed."

"Didn't she say good-bye to you?"

"No. That was all she said."

Ethan, looking slowly about the kitchen, said to himself with a shudder
that in a few hours he would be returning to it alone. Then the sense
of unreality overcame him once more, and he could not bring himself to
believe that Mattie stood there for the last time before him.

"Come on," he said almost gaily, opening the door and putting her bag
into the sleigh. He sprang to his seat and bent over to tuck the rug
about her as she slipped into the place at his side. "Now then, go
'long," he said, with a shake of the reins that sent the sorrel placidly
jogging down the hill.

"We got lots of time for a good ride, Matt!" he cried, seeking her hand
beneath the fur and pressing it in his. His face tingled and he felt
dizzy, as if he had stopped in at the Starkfield saloon on a zero day
for a drink.

At the gate, instead of making for Starkfield, he turned the sorrel to
the right, up the Bettsbridge road. Mattie sat silent, giving no sign
of surprise; but after a moment she said: "Are you going round by Shadow
Pond?"

He laughed and answered: "I knew you'd know!"

She drew closer under the bearskin, so that, looking sideways around his
coat-sleeve, he could just catch the tip of her nose and a blown brown
wave of hair. They drove slowly up the road between fields glis