closing of the house for even a short time. The colonel left her and
Viola to talk it over by themselves.

On slowly moving pinions, a lone osprey beat its way against a
quartering south-east wind to the dead tree where the little birds
waited impatiently in the nest, giving vent to curious, whistling
sounds. Slowly the osprey flew, for it had played in great luck that
day, and had swooped down on a fish that would make a meal for him and
his mate and the little ones. The fish was not yet dead, but every now
and then would contort its length in an effort to escape from the talons
which were thrust deeper and deeper into it, making bright spots of
blood on the scaly sides.

And a man, walking through the sand, looked up, and in the last rays of
the setting sun saw the drops of blood on the sides of the fish.

"A good kill, old man! A good kill!" he said aloud, and as though the
osprey could hear him. "A mighty good kill!"

When it was dark a procession of figures began to wend its way over the
lonely moor and among the sand dunes to where a tiny cottage nestled in
a lonely spot on the beach. From the cottage a cheerful light shone, and
now and then a pretty girl went to the door to look out. Seeing nothing,
she went back and sat beside a table, on which gleamed a lamp.

By the light of it a woman was knitting, her needles flying in and out
of the wool. The girl took up some sewing, but laid it down again and
again, to go to the door and peer out.

"He is not coming yet, Mazi?" asked the woman in French.

"No, mamma, but he will. He said he would. Oh, I am so happy with him! I
love him so! He is all life to me!"

"May you ever feel like that!" murmured the older woman.

Soon after that, the first of the figures in the procession reached the
little cottage. The girl flew to the door, crying:

"Jean! Jean! What made you so late?"

"I could not help it, sweetheart. I but waited to get the last of my
wages. Now I am paid, and we shall go on our honeymoon!"

"Oh, Jean! I am so happy!"

"And I, too, Mazi!" and the man drew the girl to him, a strange light
shining in his eyes.

They sat down just outside the little cottage, where the gleam from the
lamp would not reflect on them too strongly, and talked of many things.
Of old things that are ever new, and of new things that are destined to
be old.

The second figure of the procession that seemed to make the lonely
cottage on the moor a rendezvous that evening,