With a last lingering look at the light shining through the white curtain, Lynn turned slowly and went down the big road toward his grandmother's house, now lying dark and silent beneath the tall trees which stood over it and amid the thick shrubbery which crowded around it. The passionate emotion with which he had left it had passed wholly away. The love filling his mind and heart, as with the sudden unfurling of soft wings, left no room for anything hard or unkind or bitter. He had almost forgotten the hard words with which his grandmother had so cruelly stoned him; he had wholly forgiven them. For newly awakened love can forgive almost any harshness in the awakening. He was not, in fact, thinking of his grandmother at all; he was thinking solely of Doris, and was planning to see her at the earliest possible moment on the morrow. It was not easy of late to see her alone; he realized this now with a guilty pang which touched his new peace with the old pain. Only on the previous evening he had found her gone from her home, without leaving a message for him, as she always used to leave one. Only by the merest accident had he met her coming out of Miss Judy's gate; only by the most urgent persuasion had he been able to induce her to take the accustomed walk to the graveyard, which she used always to be so ready and even eager to take. Ah, that walk up the hillside, which had been as a torch to the tinder of his grandmother's anger! For that, also, as for everything else, he alone was to blame. It was too late to undo what had been done; but never again through any fault of his should evil speaking or evil thinking approach her spotless innocence. It was not for his strong arms to protect her; his own folly had forfeited all hope of that sweetest and most sacred privilege. Nevertheless, he might still beg her to forgive him, even though he knew that forgiveness was impossible for an offence such as his. And he might still tell her that he loved her and ask her to be his wife, although he knew only too well that she would refuse. And then, having done what he could, he would go on with his work. He had not forgotten his ambition, nor had he thought of giving it up; but his old foolish belief that the happiest marriage must hamper a man's life plans had gone with the rest of his blinding delusions. He no longer thought of needing both hands free for the climbing of ambition's unsteady, long ladder. It now seemed to him that he never could win anything worth the winning without Doris to hold up his hands; that nothing either great or small was worth the winning unless shared by her. And his self-delusion had forever lost him all hope of this. Yet he might still beg her to forgive him, he might still tell her that he loved her and ask her to be his wife. Nothing should deny him that honor and happiness--if he were but spared to see another morning's light.