When Travis left it was still early and Alice walked with him to the big gate. The moon shone dimly and the cool, pure light lay over everything like the first mist of frost in November. Beyond, in the field, where it struck into the open cotton bolls, it turned them into December snow-banks. Travis led his saddle horse, and as they walked to the gate, the sweet and scarcely perceptible odor of the crepe-myrtle floated out on the open air. The crepe-myrtle has a way of surprising us now and then, and often after a wet fall, it gives us the swan-song of a bloom, ere its delicate blossoms, touched to death by frost, close forever their scalloped pink eyes, on the rare summer of a life as spiritual as the sweet soft gulf winds which brought it to life. Was it symbolic to-night,--the swan-song of the romance of Alice Westmore's life, begun under those very trees so many summers ago? They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar before mounting his horse. He seemed at times to-night restless, yet always determined. She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he had been once or twice to-night. "Do you not think?" he asked, after a while as they stood by the gate, "that I should have a sweet answer soon?" Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle, aroused by a south wind suddenly awakened, smote her painfully. "You know--you know how it is, Richard"-- "How it was--Alice. But think--life is a practical--a serious thing. We all have had our romances. They are the heritage of dreaming youth. We outlive them--it is best that we should. Our spiritual life follows the law of all other life, and spiritually we are not the same this year that we were last. Nor will we be the next. It is always change--change--even as the body changes. Environment has more to do with what we are, what we think and feel--than anything else. If you will marry me you will soon love me--it is the law of love to beget love. You will forget all the lesser loves in the great love of your life. Do you not know it, feel it, Sweet?" She looked at him surprised. Never before had he used any term of endearment to her. There was a hard, still and subtle yet determined light in his eyes. "Richard--Richard--you--I"-- "See," he said, taking from his vest pocket a magnificent ring set in an exquisite old setting--inherited from his grandmother, and it had been her engagement ring. "See, Alice, let me put this on to-night."