had left him, as
if already stricken by the loneliness that must be his lot. A sob broke
from Carley's throat. She hated herself. She was in a terrible state of
conflict. Decision had been wrenched from her, but she sensed unending
strife. She dared not look back again. Stumbling and breathless, she
hurried on. How changed the atmosphere and sunlight and shadow of the
canyon! The looming walls had pitiless eyes for her flight. When she
crossed the mouth of West Fork an almost irresistible force breathed to
her from under the stately pines.

An hour later she had bidden farewell to the weeping Mrs. Hutter, and to
the white-faced Flo, and Lolomi Lodge, and the murmuring waterfall, and
the haunting loneliness of Oak Creek Canyon.

CHAPTER VIII

At Flagstaff, where Carley arrived a few minutes before train time, she
was too busily engaged with tickets and baggage to think of herself
or of the significance of leaving Arizona. But as she walked into the
Pullman she overheard a passenger remark, "Regular old Arizona sunset,"
and that shook her heart. Suddenly she realized she had come to love the
colorful sunsets, to watch and wait for them. And bitterly she thought
how that was her way to learn the value of something when it was gone.

The jerk and start of the train affected her with singular depressing
shock. She had burned her last bridge behind her. Had she unconsciously
hoped for some incredible reversion of Glenn's mind or of her own? A
sense of irreparable loss flooded over her--the first check to shame and
humiliation.

From her window she looked out to the southwest. Somewhere across the
cedar and pine-greened uplands lay Oak Creek Canyon, going to sleep in
its purple and gold shadows of sunset. Banks of broken clouds hung to
the horizon, like continents and islands and reefs set in a turquoise
sea. Shafts of sunlight streaked down through creamy-edged and
purple-centered clouds. Vast flare of gold dominated the sunset
background.

When the train rounded a curve Carley's strained vision became filled
with the upheaved bulk of the San Francisco Mountains. Ragged gray
grass slopes and green forests on end, and black fringed sky lines, all
pointed to the sharp clear peaks spearing the sky. And as she watched,
the peaks slowly flushed with sunset hues, and the sky flared golden,
and the strength of the eternal mountains stood out in sculptured
sublimity. Every day for two months and more Carley had watched the