him to face matters of life and death without the quiver
of an eyelid, but as he held her there in his arms that night she felt
his big frame tremble. Suddenly she had a powerful desire to cry. She
broke from his embrace and ran upstairs to her room.

When she came down her father and mother and Transley were sitting about
the table in the living-room; the room hung with trophies of the chase
and of competition; the room which had been the nucleus of the Y.D.
estate. There was a colored cover on the table, and the shaded oil lamp
in the centre sent a comfortable glow of light downward and about.
The mammoth shadows of the three people fell on the log walls, darting
silently from position to position with their every movement.

Her mother arose as Zen entered the room and took her hands in a warm,
tender grip.

"You're early leaving us," she said. "I'm not saying I object. I think
Mr. Transley will make you a good husband. He is a man of energy, like
your father. He will do well. You will not know the hardships that
we knew in our early married life." Their eyes met, and there was a
moment's pause.

"You will not understand for many years what this means to me, Zenith,"
her mother said, and turned quickly to her place at the table.

She could not remember what they had talked about after that. She
had been conscious of Transley's eyes often on her, and of a certain
spiritual exaltation within her. She could not remember what she had
said, but she knew she had talked with unusual vivacity and charm. It
was as though certain storehouses of brilliance in her being, of which
she had been unaware, had been suddenly opened to her. It was as though
she had been intoxicated by a very subtle wine which did not deaden, but
rather quickened, all her faculties.

Afterwards, she had spent long hours among the foothills, thinking and
thinking. There were times when the flame of that strange exaltation
burned low indeed; times when it seemed almost to expire. There were
moments--hours--of misgivings. She could not understand the strange
docility which had come over her; the unprecedented willingness to have
her course shaped by another. That strange willingness came as near to
frightening Zen as anything had ever done. She felt that she was being
carried along in a stream; that she was making no resistance; that she
had no desire to resist. She had a strange fear that some day she
would need to resist; some day she would mightily