Silently, with strange, beating hearts and fore-glimmer of beauty and wonder and loveliness, they walked west to the Park, and entered that Crystal Palace.  For every branch, every twig, every stone and rail had its pendent ice and icicle, and the strong sun smote the world with flakes of flame.  The trees were showers of rainbow-flashing glory; now and then an icicle dropped like a dart of fire, and the broad lawns were sheets of dazzle.  Earth was glittering, fresh, new, decked out in unimaginable jewels under the vast and melting blue skies.  The day was tender and clear and vigorous, tingling with life.

They followed the curve of the walk, they crossed the roadway, they climbed the hill, they walked the winding path of the Ramble.

“You remember that morning?” murmured Joe, a music waking in his heart, his pulses thronged with a new beauty.

“Remember it?” Myra whispered.  “Yes, Joe, I remember it.”

“That is the very bench we sat on.”

“That is the bench.”

“And that is the little pond.”

“That is the little pond.”

“And this is the spot.”

“This is the spot.”

They sat down on that bench in the crystal wilderness, a man and woman alone in the blue-skied spaces, among the tree-trunks, and the circle of earth.  And then to Myra came an inexpressible moment of agony and longing and love.  She had struggled months; she had stayed away; and then she had come back, and merged her life in the life of this man.  And she could bear this no longer!  Oh, Joe, will you never speak?  Will you never come to your senses?

More and more color was rising to his face, and his hands in his lap were trembling.  He tried to speak naturally—­but his voice was odd and unreal.

“Myra.”

“Yes,” tremulously.

“You must have thought me a brute.”

“I thought—­you were busy, overworked.”

“So I was.  I was swallowed up—­swallowed up.”

There was a silence, in which they heard little gray sparrows twittering in the sunlight.

“Myra.”

He hardly heard her “yes.”

“There’s been a miracle in my life this year.”

“Yes?”

“The way you came down and took hold and made good.”

“Thank you,” very faintly.

“It was the biggest thing that came my way.”

Silence.

“I was noticing it, Myra, out of the tail of my eye.”

Myra tried to laugh.  It sounded more like a dull sob.

“I haven’t time to be polite.”

“Don’t want you to,” Myra blurted.

“Strange,” said Joe, “how things come about.  Hello, Mr. Squirrel!  Want a peanut?  None on the premises.  Sorry.  Good-day!”

He leaned over, picked a bit of ice, and flung it in the air.

“Myra,” he muttered.  “I need a rest.”

“You do,” almost inaudible.

“I need—­Didn’t I say, no peanuts?  No means no!  Good-day!”