he was feeling
now, what she well knew she would never feel again. She crossed a
new-mown hayfield, and finding a bank, threw herself down on her back
among its uncut grasses. Far away at the other end men were scything.
It was all very beautiful--the soft clouds floating, the clover-stalks
pushing themselves against her palms, and stems of the tall couch grass
cool to her cheeks; little blue butterflies; a lark, invisible; the
scent of the ripe hay; and the gold-fairy arrows of the sun on her face
and limbs. To grow and reach the hour of summer; all must do that! That
was the meaning of Life! She had no more doubts and fears. She had no
more dread, no bitterness, and no remorse for what she was going to
do. She was doing it because she must.... As well might grass stay its
ripening because it shall be cut down! She had, instead, a sense of
something blessed and uplifting. Whatever Power had made her heart, had
placed within it this love. Whatever it was, whoever it was, could not
be angry with her!

A wild bee settled on her arm, and she held it up between her and the
sun, so that she might enjoy its dusky glamour. It would not sting
her--not to-day! The little blue butterflies, too, kept alighting on
her, who lay there so still. And the love-songs of the wood-pigeons
never ceased, nor the faint swish of scything.

At last she rose to make her way home. A telegram had come saying
simply: "Yes." She read it with an unmoved face, having resorted again
to her mask of languor. Toward tea-time she confessed to headache, and
said she would lie down. Up there in her room she spent those three
hours writing--writing as best she could all she had passed through in
thought and feeling, before making her decision. It seemed to her that
she owed it to herself to tell her lover how she had come to what
she had never thought to come to. She put what she had written in an
envelope and sealed it. She would give it to him, that he might read and
understand, when she had shown him with all of her how she loved him.
It would pass the time for him, until to-morrow--until they set out on
their new life together. For to-night they would make their plans, and
to-morrow start.

At half-past seven she sent word that her headache was too bad to allow
her to go out. This brought a visit from Mrs. Ercott: The Colonel and
she were so distressed; but perhaps Olive was wise not to exert herself!
And presently the Colonel himself spoke, lugubrious