XXXV. THE HALLOWED MOON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "A man and a woman--as it was in the beginning" (See Page 374) . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece "One dusty, but dainty, foot was held between her hands" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 "She was kneeling beside a low, rounded mound" . . . . . . 48 "Read the brief article twice, mechanically, and almost without understanding" . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 "Holding the girl in clinging white close to him" . . . . . 347 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER I DONALD MACDONALD, M.D. The man came to a stop, a look of humiliation and deep self-disgust on his bronzed face. With methodical care he leaned his rifle against the seamed trunk of a forest patriarch and drew the sleeve of his hunting shirt across his forehead, now glistening with beads of sweat; then, and not until then, did he relieve his injured feelings by giving voice to a short but soul-satisfying expletive. At the sound of his deep voice the dog, which had, panting, dropped at his feet after a wild, purposeless dash through the underbrush, looked up with bright eyes whose expression conveyed both worship and a question, and, as the man bent and stroked his wiry coat, rustled the pine needles with his stubby tail. The picture held no other animate creatures, and no other sound disturbed the silence of the woods. By the hunter's serviceable nickeled timepiece the afternoon was not spent; but the sun was already swinging low over the western mountaintop, and its slanting rays, as they filtered through the leafy network overhead, had begun to take on the richer gold of early evening, and the thick forest foliage of oddly intermingled oak and pine, beech and poplar, was assuming deeper, more velvety tones. There was solemn beauty in the scene; but, for the moment, the man was out of tune with the vibrant color harmonies, and he frankly stated the reason in his next words, which were addressed to his unlovely canine companion, whose sagacity more than compensated for his appealing homeliness. "Mike, we're lost!"