e hand that clasped hers.

"And until we get the house built," she cried, beginning to laugh.

"And the garden laid out and planted, I suppose?"

"Of course. And the vines growing over the front porch."

"Why not over the second story? We'll have a second story by that
time."

"Over the whole house, up to the chimneys."

They both laughed, a cheerful bass and a gay treble, sweeping out
across the unquiet water.

"It's going to be the Golden Age," she said, in the joy of her respite
pressing her lips on the hand she held. "A cottage covered with vines
to the roof and you and I and Daddy John inside it."

"And David, don't forget David."

"Of course, David," she assented lightly, for David's occupancy was
removed to a comfortable distance.

After supper she and David climbed to the top of the bank to see the
sunset. The breeze had dropped, the dust devils died with it. The
silence of evening lay like a cool hand on the heated earth. Dusk was
softening the hard, bright colors, wiping out the sharpness of
stretching shadows the baked reflection of sun on clay. The West
blazed above the mountains, but the rest of the sky was a thick, pure
blue. Against it to the South, a single peak rose, snow-enameled on a
turquoise background.

Susan felt at peace with the moment and her own soul. She radiated the
good humor of one who has faced peril and escaped. Having postponed
the event that was to make her David's forever, she felt bound to offer
recompense. Her conscience went through one of those processes by
which the consciences of women seek ease through atonement, prompting
them to actions of a baleful kindliness. Contrition made her tender to
the man she did not love. The thought that she had been unfair added a
cruel sweetness to her manner.

He lay on the edge of the bluff beside her, not saying much, for it was
happiness to feel her within touch of his hand, amiable and gentle as
she had been of late. It would have taken an eye shrewder than David's
to have seen into the secret springs of her conduct. He only knew that
she had been kinder, friendlier, less withdrawn into the sanctuary of
her virgin coldness, round which in the beginning he had hovered. His
heart was high, swelled by the promise of her beaming looks and ready
smiles. At last, in this drama of slow winning she was drawing closer,
shyly melting, her whims and perversities mellowing to the rich, sweet
yielding of the ultimate surr