"Bob? Well, hello, boy! I guess you thought we had all left you and your affairs high and dry, didn't you? I've been in New York, you know--am just back. I want to see you as soon as I can about several important matters. Suppose I run over in the car this morning? Will you be there? Good! I'll see you later, then." Robert Morton hung up the receiver and walked meditatively along the sandy road to the gray cottage. The die was cast. Whatever happened, it could not be worse than had been the days of suspense and anxiety that he had endured. The morning was close and humid, a land breeze wafting across the fields perfumes of sun-scorched pine and blossoming roses. Scarce a ripple marred the glittering surface of the bay that stretched like a sheet of burnished brass as far as one could see. Now and then a faint zephyr, rising from the wooded slopes, swept down the hill, swirling into billows of vivid emerald the coarse salt grass that swayed on the marshes. So still it was that every whisper of the surf lapping the edge of the bar could be heard; over and over the waters stole up on the shore, fretted into foam and receded, each wave creeping rhythmically back into the deep to a song of shifting sand and pebbles. How silvery the tiny houses of the hamlet looked against the azure of the sky! The few scattered trees that had braved the onslaughts of repeated gales listed landward, but the pines sheltered in the hollows of the dunes stood erect and darkly mysterious, their plumes bending idly in the soft wind. It was all a part of the idyl, the daydream, Robert Morton thought,--too flawless a thing to last. Willie, so childlike and simple, his kindly aunt, Delight with her rare beauty, and even the romance of his love seemed a part of its unreality. Was it not to be expected that sooner or later man with his blundering touch would destroy the loveliness, making prose of the poem? The Galbraiths, Snelling, the greed for money, Janoah's jealousy and evil suspicions--ah, it did not take long for such influences to mar the peace of a heaven and smear the grime of earth upon its fairness! Only glimpses of perfection were granted the dwellers of this planet,--quick, transient flashes that mirrored a future free from finite limitations. He who expected to remain on the heights in this world was doomed to disappointment.