Moya reflected silently. This search which Paul had set his heart upon would equally work his own cure, she saw. Nor could she now imagine for themselves any lover's paradise inseparable from this moral tragedy, which she saw would be fibre of their fibre, life of their life. A family is an organism; one part may think to deny or defy another, but with strange pains the subtle union exerts itself; distance cannot break the thread. They kissed each other solemnly like little children on the eve of a long journey full of awed expectancy. Mrs. Bogardus stood holding her door ajar as Moya passed on her way downstairs. “You are very late,” she uttered hoarsely. “Is nothing settled yet?” “Everything!” Moya hesitated and forced a smile, “everything but where we shall go. We will start--and decide afterwards.” “You go together? That is right. Moya, you have a genius for happiness!” “I wish I had a genius for making people sleep who lie awake hours in the night thinking about other people!” “If you mean me, people of my age need very little sleep.” “May I kiss you good-night, Paul's mother?” “You may kiss me because I am Paul's mother, not because I do not sleep.” Moya's lips touched a cheek as white and almost as cold as the frosted window-panes through which the moon was glimmering. She thought of the icy roses on her wedding dress. Downstairs her father was smoking his bedtime cigar. Mrs. Creve, very sleepy and cosy and flushed, leaned over the smouldering bed of coals. She held out her plump, soft hand to Moya. “Come here and be scolded! We have been scolding you steadily for the last hour.” “If you want that young man to get his strength back, you'd better not keep him up talking half the night,” the colonel growled softly. “Do you see what time it is?” Moya knelt and leaned her head against her father. She reached one hand to Mrs. Creve. They did not speak again till her weak moment had passed. “It will be very soon,” she said, pressing the warm hand that stroked her own. “You will help me pack, aunt Annie; and then you'll stay--with father? I know you are glad to have me out of the way at last!” XVII THE HIDDEN TRAIL Because they had set forth on a grim and sorrowful quest, it need not be supposed that Paul and Moya were a pair of sorrowful pilgrims. It was their wedding journey. At the outset Moya had said: “We are doing the best we know. For what we don't know, let us leave it and not brood.” They did not enter at once upon the more eccentric stages of the search. They went by way of the Great Northern to Portland, descending from snow to roses and drenching rains. At Pendleton, which is at the junction of three great roads, Paul sent tracers out through express agents and train officials along the remotest slender feeders of these lines. Through the same agents it was made known that for any service rendered or expense incurred on behalf of the person described, his friends would hold themselves gratefully responsible.