y-year-old
bourbon, and not at all concerned with the mission which had taken him
to Arden.

Dale stood looking after him, but not thinking. He stood in a sort of
ferment of happy thrills and deepest sorrow. The bars that had
momentarily been put up between him and his pasture of learning, now lay
again at his feet. He could pass through at will, any time he desired.
But what of Jane? Would she be there to welcome, to help him?--to take
his hand again and lead him into the cool places, into the mazy shadows,
through vista after vista of appealing outlook? He turned back to the
library and, with hesitation, stepped through the low window.

The room was empty. His eyes glanced down at the book which she had torn
from his hand and flung away. He saw that it had fallen, sprawled and
awkward, and was leaning drunkenly against the legs of the dictionary
stand. Across from it, by a deep leather chair, lay, also on the floor,
a dainty handkerchief, moist and pressed into a little ball. Each of
these held him with an esoteric charm; but his eyes remained upon the
tear-moistened, scented linen as though at any moment it might begin to
accuse him. He was afraid to touch it, and afraid to touch the book. He
felt that he had obtruded an unwelcome presence upon these two mute
evidences of passion which seemed now to be drawn momentarily apart for
breath before re-engaging in the fray. In this strained expectancy the
measured ticking of the old clock in the corner was startlingly loud.
One might have counted a hundred, and then, as quietly as he came, he
tiptoed out, crossed the porch and passed on through the trees.

CHAPTER XXXI

OUT OF THE DYING DAY

When the sheriff turned away, Jane had for an instant closed her eyes in
a prayer of happy thankfulness; but then a torture, a tearing and
racking mortification because she had proved herself so weak before the
mountain man so strong--and in contrast to Brent! (ah, God, what
sacrifice would he not make for her!)--thrust its claws into her
sensitive nature, and she blindly fled to the long room whose musty
silence promised solitude. At the far end of this she threw herself
straight out upon a sofa, and for more than an hour buried her face in
its linen coverlet. Her brows were drawn into a frown as she wilfully
shut out the image of Brent, for something sterner must first be faced.

Something must be done to re-establish Dale's faith in her, or she must
forever abandon hi