eady the way for the
Fall wheat; the robins twittering in the scattered trees; the cooing of
the wood-pigeon; over all, the sky in its perfect purpling blue, and far
down the horizon the evening-star slowly climbing. He noted the lizards
slipping through the stones; he saw where the wheel of a wagon had
crushed some wild flower-growth; he heard the far call of a milkmaid to
the cattle; he caught the sweet breath of decaying verdure, and through
all, the fresh, biting air of the new-land autumn, pleasantly stinging
his face.

Something kept saying to his mind: "It's all good. It's life and light,
and all good." But his nerves were being tried; his whole nature was
stirred.

He took the letter from his pocket again, and read it in the fading
light. It was native, naive, brutal, and unconsciously clever--and the
girl who had written it was beautiful. It had only a few lines. It
asked him why he had deserted her, his wife. It said that he would find
American law protected the deluded stranger. It asked if he had so soon
forgotten the kisses he had given her, and did he not realize they
were married? He felt that, with her, beneath all, there was more than
malice; there was a passion which would run risks to secure its end.

A few moments later he was in the room where his mother, with her
strong, fine, lonely face, sat sewing by the window. The door opened
squarely on her, and he saw how refined and sad, yet self-contained, was
the woman who had given him birth. The look in her eyes warmly welcomed
him. Her own sorrows made her sensitive to those of others, and as
Carnac entered she saw something was vexing him.

"Dear lad!" she said.

He was beside her now, and he kissed her cheek. "Best of all the world,"
he said; and he did not see that she shrank a little.

"Are you in trouble?" she asked, and her hand touched his shoulder.

The wrong she had done him long ago vexed her. It was not possible this
boy could fit in with a life where, in one sense, he did not belong.
It was not part of her sorrow that he had given himself to painting and
sculpture. In her soul she believed this might be best for him in the
end. She had a surreptitious, an almost anguished, joy in the thought
that he and John Grier could not hit it off. It seemed natural that both
men, ignorant of their own tragedy, believing themselves to be
father and son, should feel for each other the torture of distance, a
misunderstanding, which only she and on