ove he was taking away
with him, though he had to leave behind much that was very sweet; and
now the time had come to say farewell to the memories of months. In
three hours the motor car was due, which Denin had ordered to take him
and his luggage to the station. The most important piece of that
luggage was Barbara's portrait, and it had still to be put into its
case. But he was leaving the farewell to her eyes, till the last
moment, the last second even.

Meanwhile he walked in the garden, and in the jeweled green tunnel of
the pergola. There, in the pergola, he had read most of Barbara's
letters, and answered them. He was glad that no one was ever likely to
stroll or sit in the corridor of illuminated tapestry after to-day.
Carl Pohlson Bradley intended to have the pergola pulled down, and the
whole place torn to pieces in order to carry out the grandiose scheme
of a "garden architect" whom he had employed.

After the arrival of Barbara's first letter, and the one in which she
confessed her love for the dead John Denin, his sweetest association
with the pergola was the companionship of a little child--only a dream
child, but more real, it seemed, than any living child could be. It was
the child-Barbara who had walked day after day, hand in hand with him
in the pergola. She had welcomed him to the Mirador when he had come as
its owner; but after a certain letter from England, she had changed in
a peculiarly thrilling way. The letter was among the first half dozen;
but in the growing packet, Denin kept it near the top. It was one of
those which he re-read oftenest. In it Barbara had said to her friend,
John Sanbourne, "If my dear love had lived, to make me his wife,
perhaps by this time we should have had a baby with us. I think often
of that little baby that might have been--so often, that I have made it
seem real. It is a great comfort to me. I can almost believe that its
_soul_ really does exist, and that it comes to console me because its
warm little body can never be held in my arms. I see the tiny face, and
the great eyes. They are dark gray, like its father's. And when mine
fill with tears, it lays little fingers on them, fingers cool and light
as rose petals. Oh, it _must_ exist, this baby soul, for it is so
loving, and it has such strong individuality of its own! I couldn't
spare it now. Already, since it first came and said, 'I am the child
who ought to be yours and his,' it seems to have grown. It is the
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