arness
all the girl's warm, eager picturing of her old home, for he remembered
scenery and even descriptions of scenery with greater distinctness than
he remembered faces. He had often thought (until he met Barbara, and
fell in love) that he cared more for nature and places and things than
he could ever care for people, except those of his very own flesh and
blood. He knew differently now, but it seemed to him that he would be
nearer finding peace in Barbara's home-country than anywhere else in
the world.

There was no danger that she or her mother might some day appear and
meet him face to face, to the ruin of Barbara's dream of happiness with
Trevor d'Arcy. Mother and daughter had said that they never wished to
go back, now that the old ties were broken. When occasionally they
returned to America, they spent their time in Washington and New York;
but with Barbara married to Trevor d'Arcy, and mistress in her own
right of Gorston Old Hall, all interests would combine to keep mother
and daughter in England. John Denin's ghost might, if it chose, safely
haunt the birthplace of his lost love.

The day that the last proof-sheet of "The War Wedding" was corrected,
Sanbourne said good-by to Eversedge Sibley and started for California.
He could not afford to travel by the Limited or any of the fast trains,
so there were many changes and waits for him, and he was nearly a week
on the way; but when a man has lost or thrown over the best things in
his life there is the consolation that none of its small hardships seem
to matter. Besides, he had Santa Barbara to look forward to; and Denin
told himself that, things being as they were, he was lucky to have
anything to look forward to at all.

When he reached the end of the journey at last it was almost like
coming to a place he had known in dreams, so clearly did he recognize
the mountains whose lovely shapes crowded towards the sea. Barbara had
all their names by heart and treasured their photographs. He remembered
her stories of the islands, too, floating on the horizon like boats at
anchor; and the trails of golden kelp seen through the green
transparence of the waves, like the hair of sleeping mermaids. In the
same way he knew the big hotel with its mile-long drive bordered with
flaming geraniums; he knew the old town and--without asking--how to go
from there to the Mission. Also he knew that, on the way to the
Mission, he would find the place which Barbara had cared for mos