Kate and Honora left the train at the station of Wander, and the man for whom it was named was there to meet them.  If it was summer with the world, it was summer with him, too.  Some new plenitude had come to him since Kate had seen him last.  His full manhood seemed to be realized.  A fine seriousness invested him—­a seriousness which included, the observer felt sure, all imaginable fit forms of joy.  Clothed in gray, save for the inevitable sombrero, clean-shaven, bright-eyed, capable, renewed with hope, he took both women with a protecting gesture into his embrace.  The three rejoiced together in that honest demonstration which seems permissible in the West, where social forms and fears have not much foothold.

They talked as happily of little things as if great ones were not occupying their minds.  To listen, one would have thought that only “little joys” and small vexations had come their way.  It would be by looking into their faces that one could see the marks of passion—­the passion of sorrow, of love, of sacrifice.

As they came out of the pinon grove, Honora discovered her babies.  They were in white, fresh as lilies, or, perhaps, as little angels, well beloved of heavenly mothers; and they came running from the house, their golden hair shining like aureoles about their eager faces.  Their sandaled feet hardly touched the ground, and, indeed, could they have been weighed at that moment, it surely had been found that they had become almost imponderable because of the ethereal lightness of their spirits.  Their arms were outstretched; their eyes burning like the eyes of seraphs.

“Stop!” cried Honora to Karl in a choking voice.  He drew up his restless, home-bound horses, and she leaped to the ground.  As she ran toward her little ones on swift feet, the two who watched her were convinced that she had regained her old-time vigor, and had acquired an eloquence of personality which never before had been hers.  She gathered her treasures in her arms and walked with them to the house.

Kate had not many minutes to wait in the living-room before Wander joined her.  It was a long room, with triplicate, lofty windows facing the mountains which wheeled in majestic semicircle from north to west.  At this hour the purple shadows were gathering on them, and great peace and beauty lay over the world.

There was but one door to this room and Wander closed it.

“I may as well know my fate now,” he said.  “I’ve waited for this from the moment I saw you last.  Are you going to be my wife, Kate?”

He stood facing her, breathing rather heavily, his face commanded to a tense repose.

“My answer is ‘no,’” cried Kate, holding out her hands to him.  “I love you as my life, and my answer is ‘no.’”

He took the hands she had extended.

“Kiss me!” He gathered her into his arms, and upon her welcoming lips he laid his own in such a kiss as a man places upon but one woman’s lips.