nd and give it a funeral with
military honors. Perhaps, if he had not come to Santa Barbara and in
Santa Barbara happened to stumble upon this loquacious fellow with the
motor-car to hire, he might have gone through all the rest of his life
without knowing. And another strange thing was that he had lent the
stylographic pen--Mrs. Fay's last present--to a man who wanted to write
a letter just before the battle. That man, who had been killed, was
possibly still reported "missing," while John Denin's wife, assured of
his death by a peculiarly intimate clue, had been able to take her
happiness without fear. If Barbara's mother had not given him the pen,
he would not now be numbered among the dead, but would have been free
to go back to his wife of an hour, and perhaps even teach her to love
him in the end.

Well, all that didn't bear thinking of now! He tried, as he had tried a
hundred times--but never so poignantly--to hold in his heart the memory
of flaming happiness worth all the pain of living through the burnt-out
years: the happiness he had put into the pages of his "War Wedding."

With some people who had known Barbara he would have liked to talk of
her, but not with this crude youth who spouted her praises from a mouth
full of chewing gum. Denin answered a pointed question of the
chauffeur's by saying that he had enquired about the Fay place because
he heard it was worth seeing. He might like to buy a little property
somewhere near if it could be got.

"You bet it can be got!" was the prompt answer. "That is, if you want
something little _enough_, you can get a bit of the old Fay property
itself."

"Really?" said Denin. "I thought it was all disposed of years ago."

"So it was. Eight years ago and a bit. I remember because I made an
errand to sneak down to the depot and see Barbie go off in the train,
as pretty as a white rose, dressed in black for her pa. I was only a
cub of fourteen. An old feller from the East, staying at the Potter,
went crazy about the place and bought it at Mrs. Fay's own price.
(Lucky for her! They say she'd nothing else to live on!) Feller by the
name of Samuel Drake. He was out in California for his bronchitis or
something, and took a fancy to the country. He wanted his married son
with a young bride to live with him, so he got a real bright idea. I
suppose the folks who told you about the Fay place never said nothing
about a kind of little playhouse called the Mirador (Spanish for
vi