“............................Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my
door Of individual life I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my
hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which
I forbore—­Thy touch upon the palm.  The widest land Doom takes to part
us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double.  What I do And
what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes.  And
when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine And sees within
my eyes the tears of two.”

Over and over he read it with increasing bewilderment, with increasing fear, with slow-developing comprehension.  If that was to be her farewell ... but why!  Io, the straightforward, the intrepid, the exponent of fair play and the rules of the game!...  Had it been only a game?  No; at least he knew better than that.

What could it all mean?  Why that medium for her message?  Should he write and ask her?  But what was there to ask or say, in the face of her silence?  Besides, he had not even her address.  Miss Camilla could doubtless give him that.  But would she?  How much did she understand?  Why had she turned so unhelpful?

Banneker sat with his problem half through a searing night; and the other half of the night he spent in writing.  But not to Io.

At noon Camilla Van Arsdale rode up to the station.

“Are you ill, Ban?” was her greeting, as soon as she saw his face.

“No, Miss Camilla.  I’m going away.”

She nodded, confirming not so much what he said as a fulfilled suspicion of her own.  “New York is a very big city,” she said.

“I haven’t said that I was going to New York.”

“No; there is much you haven’t said.”

“I haven’t felt much like talking.  Even to you.”

“Don’t go, Ban.”

“I’ve got to.  I’ve got to get away from here.”

“And your position with the railroad?”

“I’ve resigned.  It’s all arranged.”  He pointed to the pile of letters, his night’s work.

“What are you going to do?”

“How do I know!  I beg your pardon, Miss Camilla.  Write, I suppose.”

“Write here.”

“There’s nothing to write about.”

The exile, who had spent her years weaving exquisite music from the rhythm of desert winds and the overtones of the forest silence, looked about her, over the long, yellow-gray stretches pricked out with hints of brightness, to the peaceful refuge of the pines, and again to the naked and impudent meanness of the town.  Across to her ears, borne on the air heavy with rain still unshed, came the rollicking, ragging jangle of the piano at the Sick Coyote.

“Aren’t there people to write about there?” she said.  “Tragedies and comedies and the human drama?  Barrie found it in a duller place.”

“Not until he had seen the world first,” he retorted quickly.  “And I’m not a Barrie....  I can’t stay here, Miss Camilla.”