At six o’clock he went to Aleta’s apartment.  She had not yet arrived but presently she came.  He saw that she had been crying.  She could scarcely speak.

“Frank, let us walk somewhere,” she said.  “I can’t go upstairs; it’s too full of memories.  And I can’t sit still.  I’ve got to keep moving—­fast.”

They strode off together, taking a favorite walk through the Presidio toward the Beach.  From a hill-top they saw the Exposition buildings rising from what once had been a slough.

Aleta paused and looked down.

“It’s easier to bear—­up here,” she spoke in an odd, weary monotone, as if she were thinking aloud.  “This morning ...  I think, if Norah had left anything in the bottle ...  I’d have taken it, too.”

“Why did she do it?” Frank asked quickly.

Aleta faced him.  “Norah loved a man ... he wasn’t worthy.  She could see no hope.  I wished, Frank, that you might have been there yesterday.  You used to cheer her so!”

“Don’t!” he cried out sharply.

The Exposition progressed marvelously.  Often Frank and Aleta climbed the winding Presidio ascent and gazed upon its growing wonders.

“Beauty will come out of it all,” she said one day.  “Out of our travail and sorrow and sin.  I wish that Norah was here.  She loved beauty so!”

“Perhaps she is here....  Who knows?”

She looked at him startled.  He was staring off across the Exposition site, toward the Golden Gate, where a great ship, all its sails spread, swam mysteriously luminous with the sunset.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, a catch in his voice.  “It’s like life ... coming home in the end ... after long strivings with tempest and wave.  I wonder—­” he turned to her slowly, “Aleta, will it be like that with us?”

“Home!” she spoke the word tenderly.  “I wonder what it’s like ...  I’ve never known.”

He drew his breath sharply.  “Aleta—­will you marry me?”

Her eyes filled but she did not answer.  Presently she shook her head.

He looked at her dumbly, questioning.  “You don’t love me, Frank,” she said at last.

He could not answer her.  His eyes were on the ground.  A hundred thoughts came to his mind; thoughts of an almost overwhelming tenderness; thoughts of reverence for her; of affection, comradeship.  But they were not the right thoughts.  They were not what she wanted.

Presently they turned and went toward the town together.

* * * * *

A Fairyland of gardens and lagoons sprung into existence.  Great artists labored with a kind of beauty-madness in its making.  Nine years after San Francisco lay in ashes its doors opened to the world.  From Ruins had grown a Great Dream, one so beautiful and strong, it seemed unreal.

Aleta and Frank went often.  To them the Exposition was a rhapsody of silent music and they seldom broke its harmonies with speech.