They sat down to a good dinner, and, with due appreciation of its qualities, paused between its courses to let their conversation lightly circle around the point of their past trouble, without coming quite to it. Reynolds knew that Moreton was still a bachelor, he had caught this much from his friend's manner and talk. It flashed through his mind that, after all, he had, perhaps, done himself great wrong and Moreton no good by acting up to a standard of duty recognized by few men. But it was too late to consider the matter now. It was all over and the dead past must bury its dead. Besides, had he not long ago dashed aside the poor bauble he had once called love! The subject could not, would not be avoided, nevertheless, and when it had been reached and fully talked over, both felt relieved. "She is married," said Moreton, "and is living in Florence. Her husband is Count somebody and she is an invalid, so I have heard." "I give you my word, Moreton," responded Reynolds, after a moment's silence, "that I am sincerely glad she is married, and quite sorry that she has lost her superb health. Suppose we dismiss her forever from our minds and our lives." "Done!" cried Moreton almost jocularly, extending his hand. "I have been deuced near proposing that for the last half hour. It takes a load off my breast and a cloud off my mind. Here's to a clear future, old fellow!" He filled their glasses and they drank in a genial if not a jovial mood. It was a light way in which to dispose of so weighty a matter as this had once been considered by them; but then it is the tricksy summer breath that tranquilizes the sea after the tropic storm. They were both glad to unburden themselves of certain troublesome doubts as to the genuineness of the passion each had professed. This done, that episode in their lives seemed to remove itself to a vast distance in the dim past, so they fancied, and they dismissed it as a departed illusion of their youth. Moreton looked at his friend with more than the old admiration. Indeed Reynolds was a man of superb physique and his face was one to win men and charm women. With all his health and strength and what might be called weather-stain, there was in his dark gray eyes and in his low, rich voice, a suggestion of that nonchalance and indolence which have always been characteristic of the highest type of Southerners. Nearly six feet in stature, square shouldered, slender, compact, every inch an athlete, he gave one an idea of strength, both physical and mental, which needed to be roused into action. "I think it deuced strange, don't you know, that I should have stumbled into your den here in the mountains," said Moreton. "It is like romance. They put such things in novels."