.
Perhaps it does, but I do not know, because our marriage lasted only
three years. It may be that, after many years, the heart does not beat
faster at the sound of the beloved's step; that the touch of the loving
hand brings no answering clasp.

[Sidenote: Gift of Marriage]

"But the divinest gift of marriage is this--the daily, unconscious
growing of two souls into one. Aspirations and ambitions merge, each
with the other, and love grows fast to love. Unselfishness answers to
unselfishness, tenderness responds to tenderness, and the highest joy of
each is the well-being of the other. The words of Church and State are
only the seal of a predestined compact. Day by day and year by year the
bond becomes closer and dearer, until at last the two are one, and even
death is no division.

[Sidenote: If----]

"A grave has lain between us for more than twenty years, but I am still
her husband--there has been no change. And, if she died loving me, she
is still mine. If she died loving me--if--she--died--loving me----"

His voice broke at the end, and he went out, murmuring the words to
himself. Barbara watched him from the window as he opened the gate. Her
face was wet with tears.

Flaming banners of sunset streamed from the hills beyond him, but his
soul could see no Golden City to-night. He went up the road that led to
another hillside, where, in the long, dreamy shadows, the dwellers in
God's acre lay at peace. Barbara guessed where he was going and her
heart ached for him--kneeling in prayer and vigil beside a sunken grave,
to ask of earth a question to which the answer was lost, in heaven--or
in hell.

V

Eloise

[Sidenote: A Summer Hotel]

The hotel was a long, low, rambling structure, with creaky floors and
old-fashioned furniture. But the wide verandas commanded a glorious view
of the sea, no canned vegetables were served at the table, and there was
no orchestra. Naturally, it was crowded from June to October with people
who earnestly desired quiet and were willing to go far to get it.

The inevitable row of rocking-chairs swayed back and forth on the
seaward side. Most of them were empty, save, perhaps, for the ghosts of
long-dead gossips who had sat and rocked and talked and rocked from one
meal to the next. The paint on the veranda was worn in a long series of
parallel lines, slightly curved, but nobody cared.

No phonograph broke upon the evening stillness with an ear-splitting
din, no unholy