The elaborate midday dinner at Arden had been dabbled at, or bolted with a rush which did scant justice to the cuisine of that hospitable establishment; for a restiveness obsessed the household which would not be denied. The Colonel was wishing for the return of Doctor Stone—and this happened to be the wish of Nancy. Brent cared little what took place if four o'clock would hurry around. Yet each shared in a vague apprehension for the mountaineer who, Zack told them, had not returned.

"He may have walked over to Bob's," the Colonel suggested, and the simple hearted servant, seeing his old master's distress of mind, unhesitatingly declared:

"Dat's jest whar he done gwine, Marse John, sho's youse bawned!"

This had brought relief, if not conviction.

Nevertheless, the old gentleman preferred to abandon his Sunday afternoon nap in favor of watching for Stone. Always, always now since yesterday morning, he found himself listening for hoofbeats—listening for the returning man of science who would bring a message of caution from the fountain head of Sunlight Patch; and, in this humor of expectancy, wandered out to the grouped chairs to be alone.

At half after three o'clock Brent came softly from the house, mounted his horse and started at a very slow walk around the tanbark circle. During this stealthy advance he watched with affectionate care to see that nothing disturbed the old gentleman, whose chin some time before had sunk peacefully to his breast. Still on the lookout for Stone, still vigilant and faithful to the interest of his mountain friend and guest, the Sunday afternoon nap of many years' indulgence had crept into his brain to claim its own.

For the first two or three miles after he and Jane turned out of Flat Rock their spirited animals were allowed to toss their heads and go for the pure joy of going. Mac dashed on in front, using every ounce of his sinew to keep that position. They were following the same lane, the same tangled aisle of rioting vines which he had one day likened to his life—a life in which his gardener had since been conscientiously employed.

She knew how conscientiously. Had Uncle Zack not daily poured it into Aunt Timmie's ears, still would she have known by a more convincing sense. She knew just when the gardener had entered the woods and pastures of his imaginings, cutting out the poison-ivy and pruning good things for greater promise. She had watched this with secret exultation; it hovered near her pillow in the nights, and touched her lips with song at waking time.

They reached the chapel and entered without a word. But on the threshold—where upon that other Sunday he had asked if this miracle might be performed for her sake and she had answered: "for your own!"—his eyes looked seriously, deeply, down at her. She knew they were speaking for him, and while the service was in progress she wondered over and over if hers had answered.

Neither of these worshippers, who forgot to worship, was in a mood for talking as they came out and rode slowly home along the lane. Its evening peace seemed to be a continuance of the chapel's calm. The sun was low—balancing, as a red ball, on the hazy, distant hilltops. In three and a half minutes it would be down, leaving them in an afterglow of exquisite softness and touching the partially clouded western sky with a wealth of glory.

Plaintively across the fields could be heard the call of sheep, mellowed by the tinkle of their leader's bell. She could see them—little moving mushrooms on the pasture slope—and to her ears came the sound of someone letting down the stable bars. It suggested someone watching for her coming; someone letting down the bars and calling her into a place where she might be for all time safe.

"The days are getting short," he murmured, watching the last red segment slip from sight. "It won't be so very long before these old oaks are as red as that sky."

"I don't like to think of winter," she, too, spoke dreamily. "And see! It's sunset! Don't you think we should be getting home?"

"I suppose we should," he gloomily answered, though his heart was beating madly. "And in a few days I must think of hurrying home, too—of leaving this, all this," his hand waved toward the crimson west. "It will be as if I were emerging from a wonderful dream—from a crystal palace which will fall in little pieces; and I'll search and search for the rest of my life and never find it again! I shall miss my crystal palace!"

For a moment neither dared to speak. It was very still in the fragrant lane and their horses, which all this while had been walking slower, now stopped as though in obedience to some whispered voice. Leaning gently toward her, trembling before a depth of feeling which had never until this time been so stirred, he said hoarsely:

"I won't lose it! I can't lose it, Jane!"

Distantly—yet almost out of the air about them, as if it were the spirit of Kentucky speaking with ineffable gentleness through the gathering twilight—a quintette of negroes, somewhere across the valley, sang in mellow, minor harmonies:

"Weep no moh, mah lady;
Oh, weep no moh, today!"

He could see that her eyes were swimming in an adorable moisture, and her face, touched by the dying day, seemed to be whispering out to him through a glorified mist.

"I can't live without it—now!" he was pleading desperately.

"Neither can I," she whispered.

Half an hour later, Mac was still sitting in the road, his head tilted inquiringly up at them: while the horses, still shoulder to shoulder, stood patiently champing their bits.