"That is putting it rather harshly, and just now I'm not in the mood to quarrel with any one; and least of all with you. I am going away to be gone indefinitely, and I don't want to give you a buffet by way of leave-taking. But the fact remains. If you can admit it and still believe that the old-time friendship is yet alive in me, I wish you would. And if you dare take word from me to Miss Elliott, I'd be glad if you would say to her that my sorrow for what has happened is second only to hers." The letter is signed, sealed, and addressed, and he drops it into the mail-box. The lamp is flaring in the night wind sifting in through the loosened chinking, and he extinguishes it and goes out to tramp himself weary in the little cleared space which had once been Garvin's dooryard. It is a year and a day since he wore out the midwatch of that other summer night on the eve of the forthfaring from the valley of dry bones, and he recalls it and the impassioned outburst which went to the ending of it. Again he turns his face toward the far-away city of the plain, but this time his eyes are dim when the reiterant thought slips into speech. "God help me!" he says. "How can I ever go to her and tell her that I have failed!" CHAPTER XXXV THE news of Lansdale's death came with the shock of the unexpected to the dwellers in the metamorphosed cabin on the upslope of Topeka Mountain, albeit no one of the three of them had ventured to hope for anything more than a reprieve as the outcome of the jaunt afield. But the manner of his death at the time when the reprieve seemed well assured was responsible for the shock and its sorrowful aftermath; and if Constance grieved more than Bartrow or her cousin, it was only for the reason that the heart of compassion knows best the bitterness of infruition. "It's a miserably comfortless saying to offer you, Connie, dear, but we must try to believe it is for the best," said Myra, finding Constance re-reading Jeffard's telegram by the light of her bedroom lamp. Constance put her arms about her cousin's neck, and the heart of compassion overflowed. "'For unto every one that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath,'" she sobbed. "Of all the things he had set his heart upon life was the least,--was only the means to an end: and even that was taken from him." "No, not taken, Connie; he gave it, and gave it freely. He did for another what his friend was trying to do for him." At the reference to Jeffard, Constance went to stand before the crackling fire of fir-splinters on the hearth. After a time she said: "Do you suppose Mr. Jeffard will come here to tell us about it?" Myra's answer was a query. "Does he know you are here?" "No, I think not." "Then he will be more likely to go to Denver." Connie's gaze was in the fire, and she swerved aside from the straight path of inference.