owned it had or had not
been his father, he had merely looked at it from the outside. There
had been a small garden filled with flowers before it then; now yard
and roofs were buried deep in snow. The woman who came to the door was
willing to show them through the house; it had only five rooms. One of
those upon the second floor was so much larger and pleasanter than the
rest that they became quite sure that it was the one in which Alan had
been born, and where his young mother soon afterward had died.

They were very quiet as they stood looking about.

"I wish we could have known her," Constance said.

The woman, who had showed them about, had gone to another room and left
them alone.

"There seems to have been no picture of her and nothing of hers left
here that any one can tell me about; but," Alan choked, "it's good to
be able to think of her as I can now."

"I know," Constance said. "When you were away, I used to think of you
as finding out about her and--and I wanted to be with you. I'm glad
I'm with you now, though you don't need me any more!"

"Not need you!"

"I mean--no one can say anything against her now!"

Alan drew nearer her, trembling.

"I can never thank you--I can never tell you what you did for me,
believing in--her and in me, no matter how things looked. And then,
coming up here as you did--for me!"

"Yes, it was for you, Alan!"

"Constance!" He caught her. She let him hold her; then, still
clinging to him, she put him a little away.

"The night before you came to the Point last summer, Alan, he--he had
just come and asked me again. I'd promised; but we motored that
evening to his place and--there were sunflowers there, and I knew that
night I couldn't love him."

"Because of the sunflowers?"

"Sunflower houses, Alan, they made me think of; do you remember?"

"Remember!"

The woman was returning to them now and, perhaps, it was as well; for
not yet, he knew, could he ask her all that he wished; what had
happened was too recent yet for that. But to him, Spearman--half mad
and fleeing from the haunts of men--was beginning to be like one who
had never been; and he knew she shared this feeling. The light in her
deep eyes was telling him already what her answer to him would be; and
life stretched forth before him full of love and happiness and hope.

THE END

ZANE GREY'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.