ding her take
hope. She was not expectant of definite delights; she only cherished an
irresponsible certainty. When the door opened to let in spring, it
seemed to show her heaven also, and she gave herself up to the gladness
of it. If Marietta had been able to scrutinize her inner being, she
would probably have owned that she found Jerry Freelands' influence upon
her a great and guiding one. It was, she knew, a precious privilege to
know a poet, and to see the natural and spiritual worlds through his
discerning eyes. It would have seemed to her wonderful to be a poet
herself. Ruth Bellair, waiting in unconscious sovereignty for Jerry to
seek her out and lay lilies at her feet, was, she knew, the happiest
woman in the spring world. Yet the soft air moved the pines to wavelike
murmurings, and Marietta too was happy.

It was nearly three o'clock when Jerry came back, and before that
Marietta had roused herself to open her basket and spread a napkin on
the big flat stone that made the picnic-table. She had laid a pile of
fine white bread and butter on the cloth, a paper twist of pickles,
because picnickers, according to tradition, are the better for
consuming pickles, and some of her own superior sugar gingerbread. The
cup was there waiting for Jerry to take it to the spring. Then she
listened for him. He did not give the expected coot, but came through
the forest glade silently and with a halting step. When Marietta saw him
her heart ran forward, before her feet. Jerry looked an older man; his
years were so apparent to her that it seemed for a foolish instant as if
his father were advancing toward her out of the past where she and Jerry
had been young together. She hurried forward.

"What is it?" she besought. "What's happened?"

His dull eyes turned upon her absently. He took off his hat and dropped
it at his feet.

"Why," said he, "nothing's happened that I know of."

The part of prudence was to halt, but anxiety hurried her on as if it
might have been to the rescue of a child in pain.

"Didn't you see her?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes, I saw her."

He passed a hand over his forehead and smoothed his hair in a way he
had, ending the gesture at the back of his neck.

"How'd she look, Jerry? What was she doing?"

"Why," said Jerry, narrowing his eyes, as if he recalled a picture he
had found incredible, "she was playing croquet out in the front yard."

"But how'd she look?"

"Why, she's a kind of a dark-co