But she stood there and looked after him--watched him with deep pain in her eyes. He stooped a little, and of course he walked slowly, and uncertainly. All that happy spring and assurance had gone from his walk. She walked down to the rear of the yard, stood there leaning against the back fence. She had dropped more than one tear over that back fence. She too had lost something during the summer. Struggle had sapped up some of the wine of youth. Her face was thinner, but that was not the vital difference. The real change lay in the determination with which she had learned to set her jaw, the defiance with which she held her head, and the wistfulness, the pleading, with which her eyes seemed to be looking out into the future. The combination of things about her was a strange one. She looked to the west; the sun was low, the clouds very beautiful. For the minute she seemed to relax:--beauty always rested her. And then, with a sharp closing of her eyes, a bitter little shake of her head, she turned away. She could not look at beautiful things now without the consciousness that Karl could not see them. They always sat together in the library that hour before dinner--"our hour" they had come to call it. She wondered, with a hot rush of tears, if they did not care for it because it marked the close of another day. She turned to the house, kicking the newly cut grass with her foot, walking slowly. She was waiting for something--fighting for it. Karl needed her to-night, needed courage and cheer. She came so quietly, or else he was so deep in thought, that he did not hear her. For a minute she stood there in the library door. He was sitting in his Morris chair, his hands upon the arms of it, his head leaning back. His eyes were closed, one could not tell in that moment that he was blind, but it was more than the dimness, the blankness in his eyes, more than scarred eyeballs, made for the change in Karl's face. He and life did not dwell together as they had once; a freedom and a gladness and a sureness had gone. The loss of those things meant the loss of something fundamentally Karl. And the sadness--and the longing--and the marks of struggle which the light of courage could not hide! She choked a little, and he heard her, and held out his hand, with a smile. It was the smile which came closest to bridging the change. He was very close to being Karl when he smiled at her like that. She sat down on the low seat beside him, as was their fashion. "Lazy man,"--brushing his hand tenderly with her lips--"wouldn't help his wife cut the grass!" She wondered, as they sat there in silence, how many lovers had loved that hour. It seemed mellowed with the dreams it had held from the first of time. Ever since the world was very young, children of love had crept into the twilight hour and claimed it as their own. Perhaps the lovers of to-day love it because unto it has been committed the soul of all love's yesterdays.