efore he left the country
and come to a final understanding about it all. She wanted, anyway, to
see him more than anybody else. He seemed to her in her dark hour the
healthiest and most natural person she knew--most nearly on her own
level of understanding, the one who really knew all about her and what
her boy's death meant to her. But she was still too utterly will-less to
bring about an interview between herself and her cousin either by
sending for him or going up to the shack to find him.

Finally, after ten days of this semi-conscious existence, she awoke one
morning with a definite purpose stirring at the roots of her being, and
instead of returning from her child's grave as before she kept on up
over the brow of the hill to the open field. The sight of the large
sweep of earth and ocean and sky on this clear April morning was the
first sensation of returning life that came to her. She stood for some
time contemplating the scene, which glowed with that peculiar intense
light, like vivid illumination, that is characteristic of California.
The world seemed to her this morning a very big place and
lonely--largely untried, unexplored by her, for all her moving about in
it and tasting its sweets. In this mood she proceeded to the little
tar-paper shack. She feared to find it empty, to discover that the mason
had gone to the city, in which case she should have to follow him and go
to the trouble of hunting him up.

But he had not yet left, although his belongings were neatly packed in
his trunk and kitty-bag. He was fussing about the stove, whistling to
himself as he prepared a bird which he had shot that morning for his
dinner. He had on his town clothes, which made him slightly unfamiliar
in appearance. She knew him in khaki and flannel shirt, with bare arms
and neck. He looked rougher in conventional dress than in his
workingman's clothes.

At sight of Adelle standing in the doorway, the mason laid down his
frying-pan and stopped whistling. Without greeting he hastily took up
the only chair he had and placed it in the shade of the pepper tree in
front of the shack. Adelle sat down with a wan little smile of thanks.

"I'm glad you hadn't gone," she said.

"I ain't been in any particular hurry," her cousin answered. "Been
huntin' some down in the woods," he added, nodding westward. He sat on
the doorsill and picked up a twig to chew.

"I've been wanting to talk to you about that matter I told you of the
morning