e the sun, they were slipping out of the sight
of Myrtle Forge; vanished and remained; passed from falling hand to hand
the unextinguished flame of life. Gilda Penny was merging fast into the
formless dark. She clung with pathetically tense fingers to his arm as
they turned into the house.

He had ordered a carriage immediately after an early supper; and,
informing his coachman of his wish to proceed alone, drove quickly away
through the dusk. He was going to Shadrach Furnace, to meet Susan for
the first time since the unhappy occasion in the Mayor's chamber. He had
decided, stifling his increasing impatience, not to see her until
Essie's trial was over. Susan had been at Graham Jannan's house for nine
weeks. Her sight, he had learned, had almost completely failed in a
general exhaustion; but, with rigorous care, she had nearly recovered.
The Academy had been sold to the assistant mistress; and there was an
expressed uncertainty about Susan's near future. It had, however, no
existence in Jasper Penny's thoughts, plans--she must marry him; any
other course would now be absurd. The track from Myrtle Forge to the
Furnace was bound into his every thought and association; its
familiarity, he mused, had been born in him; his horses, too, took
correctly, without pressure, every turning of the way. The road mounted,
and then dropped between rounded hills to the clustering buildings,
where lighted, pale yellow windows floated on the dusk, crowned by the
wide-flung radiance of the Furnace stack. The air was potent in the
valley with the indeterminate scent of budding earth--the premonitory
fragrance of blossoms; and, hardly less delicate, stars flowered whitely
in blue space.

He paused for a moment before entering Graham Jannan's house, saturated
with the pastoral tranquillity, listening to the flutter of wings under
the eaves. Then he went in. They had finished supper, but were lingering
at the table, with the candles guttering in an air from the open door.
His greeting was simple and glad, and without restraint. Susan wore a
dress like a white vapour, sprigged with pale buds, her throat and arms
bare. She smiled the familiar, hesitating smile, met his questioning
gaze with her undeviating courage. Jasper Penny took a chair opposite
her. Little was said. Peace deepened about his spirit.

Graham, he saw, had a new ruddiness of health; he laid a shawl tenderly
about his wife's shoulders; and Jasper remembered that a birth was