Elizabeth and to her daughter. And I have—lost them—"
His haggard eyes met hers. She said gently:
"Some day—I think, Hildegarde's heart will come back to you."
But he knew that it would not come back. Not if he married Ethel. . . . He took his hat and coat from the chair where he had laid them. "Will you tell her I was here?"
"Tomorrow, perhaps. Not tonight. I should hate to cast a shadow on our little feast."
Through the open door he could see the homely preparations, the table with its clean white cloth and its saffron roses. Here there would be no men in dinner coats, no women in shimmering gowns. Just Hildegarde in her simple dress. Just Hildegarde. . . .
He bade the old aunt an abrupt "Good-night."
She heard his retreating footsteps in the hall. The outer door opened and shut, and presently the taxi coughed and sputtered on its way to the station.
The rain had stopped and there was a stiff breeze blowing—it blew so hard, indeed, on the hilltop where Crispin stood with Hildegarde, that only the great rock at their backs saved them from being swept before it like leaves from a tree.
The night had come, and the sky above them was an inverted sapphire bowl. The valley curving up to meet it was blue with shadows. The lovers on their hilltop seemed thus enclosed in a limitless sphere studded overhead with the brightness of the stars, and below with the lights of the countryside. They had a sense of the infinite, the eternal. They had walked
