back to London. I'm not the only thing that has grown. My work--sometime
I'll show you my work before and after. I wish I could have shown it to
dad,--I wish I could have told him that I've said good-by to Folly."

"Good-by to Folly?" cried Natalie, with a leap of the heart. Then her
heart sank back. "You mean you've said good-by to foolishness, to
childish things?"

"Both," said Lewis. "Folly Delaires and childish things."

"Why?" asked Natalie, shortly.

"Because," said Lewis, "it was given me to see her through and through."

"And now?" breathed Natalie, drawing slightly away from him lest he hear
the thumping of her heart.

Lewis turned his head and looked at her. The flush was back in her
cheeks, her eyes were wide and staring far away, her moist lips were
half open, and her bosom rose and fell in the long, halting swell of
tremulous breath.

There is a beauty that transcends the fixed bounds of flesh, that leaps
to the eye of love when all the world is blind. The flower that opens
slowly, the face grown dear through half of life, needs no tenure in
memory. It lives. Tears can not dim its beauty nor age destroy its
grace, for the vision is part of him who sees.

The vision came to Lewis. His arms trembled to grip Natalie, to outrage
her trust, and seize too lightly the promise of the years.

"Now, Nat?" he said hoarsely. He raised his hands slowly, took off her
hat, and tossed it aside. Then with trembling fingers he let down her
hair. It tumbled about her shoulders in a gold and copper glory of light
and shade. Natalie did not stir. Lewis caught up a handful of her hair
and held it against his cheek. "Now," he said, "I stay here. Since long
before the day you said that you and I would sail together to the
biggest island you've held my hand, and I've held yours. Sometimes I've
forgotten, but--but I've never really let go. I'll not let go now. I'll
cling to you, walk beside you, live with you, hand in hand, until the
day you know me through and through.

"And then?" whispered Natalie.

"Then I'll love you," said Lewis, gravely. "For me you hold all the
seven worlds of women. I've--I've been walking with my back to the
light."

Natalie laughed--the soft laughter with which women choke back tears.
She put up her hands and drew Lewis's head against her breast.

THE END

JOHN FOX, JR'S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap