"Because I'm going back to the I's, or the J's, on the day after," she answered. "Oh, no, no, you mustn't!" I exclaimed. "You must stay here with the jays. Why, you're not strong enough, and New York will be horribly hot, and you haven't seen the phlox in bloom yet round the sundial, and you've got to tell me where to plant the perennials, when I sow them, and--and--well, you just mustn't go." She smiled wistfully. "Pronunciation is more important for me than perennials, if not so pleasant," she said. "I shall think of Twin Fires often, though, in--in the heat." "They'll arrest you if you try to wade in Central Park," said I. She laughed softly, lifting the corners of her eyes to mine. "Anyhow," I maintained, "you are not well enough to go back. You are just beginning to get strong again. It's folly, that's what it is!" "Strong! Why, my hands are as calloused as yours," she laughed, "and about as tanned." "Let me feel," I demanded. She hesitated a second, and then put out her hand. I took it in mine, and touched the palm. Then my fingers closed over it, and I held it in silence, while through the soft June night the music of far frogs came to us, and the song of crickets in the grass. She did not attempt to withdraw it for a long moment. The night noises, the night odours in the warm dark, wrapped us about, as we sat close together on the bench. I turned my face to hers, and saw that she was softly weeping. Strange tears were very close to my own eyes. But I did not speak. The hand slipped out of mine. She rose, and we moved to the door. "The path to-morrow, at twilight," I whispered. She nodded, not trusting to speech, and suddenly she was gone. I walked down the road to Twin Fires in a dream, yet curiously aware of the rhythmic throb, the swell and diminuendo, of the crickets' elfin chime. Chapter XV A PAGAN THRUSH All that next June day I worked in my garden, in a dream, my hands performing their tasks mechanically. I ran the wheel hoe between the rows of newly planted raspberries and blackberries, to mulch the soil, without consciousness of the future fruit which was supposed to delight me.