The place had changed with the season; yellowing leaves clothed the trees; the beds of moss had turned to vast reaches of golden velvet; naked branches crossed and recrossed above in delicate network against the sky. Here was the silver birch against which she had leaned when his arms were round her and her lips touched his; there he had lain at her feet, stretched across that bed of gilded moss—only a boy then, smiling, idle, unawakened. She seated herself exactly as she had sat that day, and looked at the empty place where once, so long ago, life had begun and ended for her—the place of self-sacrifice, the altar where her heart had died to appease the Fates and mollify the mischief of the far white gods. Among the yellow leaves a blue jay screamed through the stillness; and presently she saw him for a moment, a flash of azure and silver, high-winging from his invaded sanctuary. Behind him he left a silence, deeper for the constant whisper of falling leaves, stranger for the far sighing of the unseen stream below. She bent over and searched for the imprint of her fingers in the moss where he had kissed them unrebuked. Many a sun and moon and rain had smoothed out that delicate sign manual long since. Only upon her heart the imprint of his lips remained. Then—for the path was easy to her; alas! too easy—she sent her spirit back along the Road to Yesterday; and soon she heard the starlings piping and saw the sky all rose and gold above the river; and she saw him, and heard his voice, talking of starlings and of children. If a single bright tear fell, the moss buried it; and when at last she could see her letter paper through glimmering lashes, she inked her pen and set her small, sun-tanned hand resolutely to the task before her: "Jim, dear, Silvette is going to marry Jack Rivett. She is supremely happy. I inclose her note to you. "Only the families concerned know about it yet. It is to be announced in December. The date of the wedding has not yet been fixed. "I write you this pleasant news because you are our nearest relative. "In my last letter I told you that Silvette did not love him. I was wrong; she did love him all the while, but she was too decent to know it. So how on earth was I to suspect it? I didn’t, and she didn’t, and if it hadn’t been for Jack kicking over the traces and cantering away out of bounds, there probably would have been a tragedy in the family; for Silvette and I had your kind and sensible letter, saying that the only honorable thing to do was to take the first opportunity to withdraw from Adriutha, and we had decided you were right. "But man proposes, Jim, and the far gods laugh at him—not unkindly, sometimes. My little sister is radiantly happy. Jack is a dear; so is his sister and parents.