l kindly with women. Mammy had grown old and thin. Her
clothes, frayed, but clean, hung loosely upon her. Her hair was turning
gray. She wore steel-rimmed glasses. Mrs. Leighton's face, while it had
not returned to the apathy of the years of sorrow at Nadir, was still
deeply lined and of the color and texture of old parchment. The blue of
her eyes had paled and paled until light seemed to have almost gone from
them. To Natalie had come age with youth. She gave the impression of a
freshly cut flower suddenly wilted by the sun.

In Mrs. Leighton's lap lay two letters. One had brought the news that
Natalie had inherited from a Northern Leighton aunt an old property on a
New England hillside. The other contained the third offer from a
development company that had long coveted the grounds about Consolation
Cottage.

"It's a great deal of money, dear," said Mrs. Leighton to Natalie. "What
shall we do?"

For a moment Natalie did not reply, and when she spoke, it was not in
answer. She said:

"Mother, where is Lew? I want him." Her low voice quivered with desire.

Mrs. Leighton put her fingers into Natalie's soft hair and drew the
girl's head against her breast. A lump rose in her throat. She longed to
murmur comfort, but she had long since lost the habit of words. What was
life worth if she could not buy with it happiness for this her only
remaining love?

"Darling," she whispered at last, "whatever you wish, whatever you say,
we'll do. Do you think--would you like to go back to--to Nadir--and look
for Lewis?"

Natalie divined the sacrifice in those halting words. Her thin arms went
up around Ann Leighton's neck. She pressed her face hard against her
mother's shoulder. She wanted to cry, but could not. Without raising her
face, she shook her head and said:

"No, no. I don't want ever to go back to Nadir. Lew is not there. That
night--that night after we buried father I went out on the hills and
called for Lew. He did not answer. Suddenly I just knew he wasn't there.
I knew that he was far, far away."

Ann Leighton did not try to reason against instinct. She softly rocked
Natalie to and fro, her pale eyes fixed on the setting sun. Gradually
the sunset awoke in her mind a stabbing memory. Here on this bench she
had sat, Natalie, a baby, in her lap, and in the shelter of her arms
little Lewis and--and Shenton, her boy. By yonder rail she had stood
with her unconscious boy in her arms, and day had suddenly ceased as
th