"They have a story of the owl and the magnolia bloom," she answered, after a pause. "They say that the big laughing owl comes, in his wisdom, every spring, when the buds of the magnolias are just on the point of opening, and says to the tree: 'Hold fast, hold fast; if you speak now you'll lose your influence for a whole year,' but the tree does not heed the wise counsel. It opens its lips (the petals of its flowers) and spills its perfume. Then the owl laughs dismally and the tree has no more perfume for a year." "That doesn't sound much like a thought of savage origin. It has a weak touch of civilization in it somewhere." "Oh, the negroes have gathered liberally from us, no doubt," she said, reflectively stirring some dry leaves with the toe of her tiny boot. It vexed him that this action reminded him of Milly White. He rubbed his forehead to try to dissipate the thought. Perhaps there was, scarcely known to himself, a deeper reason for his irritation in the consciousness that they both were beating against the wind to reach some common ground from which they might banish forever any allusion to what they felt must always remain a dreary memory. After a long silence, Mrs. Ransom, with the outright courage of her womanly sense of what was for the best, did not hesitate to approach the point. "This thing, that you told me of the other day, must be our secret. The world has no right to it. I have considered it from every point of view possible to me, and I can see no other safe or proper course. Am I right?" Reynolds was startled by the steadiness and firmness of her voice and manner, but he clutched eagerly at the comfort of her suggestion, so like an echo of his own thought. "I am glad to hear you say that," he replied. "I was on the point of saying it myself. Let us bury the subject forever. It is one of the inscrutable turns of fate over which we never had control. It is in the past. Let it stay there." "I thought at first that I could not bear it, but it came to me, after the first shock, that you are the one most burdened and that I ought to help you," she responded, with an infinite tenderness in her voice. "I know you were not to blame." "God knows how true that is, and how I love you," said he, in a husky accent, his cheeks pale with intense feeling, his eyes burning strangely.