“But one may—­there is always the chance.  I fancied I was near it once—­in a shell hole.  The stars were big and close and the earth seemed light and ready to float away.  I almost had it then—­my lips were just moving upon some mighty word—­but someone came.  They found me and carried me in . . .  I say, the sun is climbing up, let’s follow it.”

Hand in hand they followed the line of the sinking sun up the slippery slope.  They both knew where they were going, for every evening of their stay they had wandered there to sit awhile in the little deserted Indian burying-ground which lay, white fenced and peaceful, facing the flaming west.  When they had found it first it had seemed to give the last touch of beauty to that beautiful place.

“It is so different,” said Desire, searching carefully, as was her way, for the proper word.  “It is so—­so beautifully dead.  It ought to be like that,” she went on thoughtfully.  “I never realized before why our cemeteries are so sad—­it is because we will not let them really die—­we dress them up with flowers—­a kind of ghastly life in death.  But this—­”

They looked around them at the little white-fenced spot with its great centre cross, grey and weather-beaten, and all its smaller crosses clustering round.  There was warmth here, the warmth of sun upon a western slope.  There was life, too, the natural life of grass and vine, the cheerful noise of birds and squirrels and bees.  And, for color, there were harmonies in all the browns and greens and yellows of the rocky soil.

“Let us sit here.  They won’t mind.  They are all sleeping so happily,” Desire had declared.  “And the crosses make it seem like one large family—­see how that wild rose vine has spread itself over a whole group of graves!  It is so friendly.”

Spence had fallen in with her humor, and had come indeed to love this place where even the sun paused lingeringly before the mountains swallowed it up.

This afternoon he flung himself down beside their favorite rose-vine with the comfortable sense of well-being which comes with returning health.  Even more than Desire, he wondered that he had ever hesitated before an arrangement so eminently satisfying.  If ever events had justified an impulse, his impulse, he felt, had been justified.  He stole a glance at Desire as she sat in pleasant silence gazing into the sunset.  She was happier already, and younger.  Something of that hard maturity was fading from her eyes—­ the tiny dented corners of her lips were softer. . . .  Oh, undoubtedly he had done the right thing!  And everything had run so smoothly.  There had been no trouble.  No unlocked for Nemesis had dogged his steps even in the matter of that small strategy concerning his unhappy past.  He had been unduly worried about that, owing probably to early copy-book aphorisms.  Honesty is the best policy.  Yes, but—­nothing had happened.  Mary, bless her, was already only a memory.  She had played her part and slipped back into the void from whence she came.  He could forget her very name with impunity.  A faint smile testified to a conscience lulled to warm security.