st
in the loneliness of their bleakness, wandered to and fro among her
retinue of servants like a butterfly beating its wings against a pane
of glass.

With both hands extended she ran forward to meet her guest.

"I'm so glad, so glad, so glad to see you."

The joy-note in her voice was irrepressible. She had been alone for
weeks with the conventional gloom that made an obsession of the shadow
of death which enveloped the house. All voices and footsteps had been
subdued to harmonize with the grief of the mistress of this mausoleum.
Now she heard the sharp tread of this man unafraid, and saw the alert
vitality of his confident bearing. It was like a breath of the hills to
a parched traveler.

"I told you I would come."

"Yes. I've been looking for you every day. I've checked each one off on
my calendar. It's been three weeks and five days since I saw you."

"I thought it was a year," he laughed, and the sound of his uncurbed
voice rang strangely in this room given to murmurs.

"Tell me about everything. How is Virginia, and Mrs. Mott, and Mr.
Yesler? And is he really engaged to that sweet little school-teacher?
And how does Mr. Hobart like being senator?"

"Not more than a dozen questions permitted at a time. Begin again,
please."

"First, then, when did you reach the city?"

He consulted his watch. "Just two hours and twenty-seven minutes ago."

"And how long are you going to stay?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"For one thing, on whether you treat me well," he smiled.

"Oh, I'll treat you well. I never was so glad to see a real live
somebody in my life. It's been pretty bad here." She gave a dreary
little smile as she glanced around at the funereal air of the place.
"Do you know, I don't think we think of death in the right way? Or,
maybe, I'm a heathen and haven't the proper feelings."

She had sat down on one of the stiff divans, and Ridgway found a place
beside her.

"Suppose you tell me about it," he suggested.

"I know I must be wrong, and you'll be shocked when you hear."

"Very likely."

"I can't help feeling that the living have rights, too," she began
dubiously. "If they would let me alone I could be sorry in my own way,
but I don't see why I have to make a parade of grief. It seems to--to
cheapen one's feelings, you know."

He nodded. "Just as if you had to measure your friendship for the dead
with a yardstick of Mother Grundy. It's a hideous imposition laid on us
by custom, one o