In the car, as the train fled through the glory of the sunset, Barbara closed her eyes, the longer to keep the impression of that eager gaze: the lithe, muscular poise of the strong frame, the parted lips, the brown hair curling under the peak of the cloth cap. She tried to imagine him on his backward journey. Now the trolley had passed the rice-fields, now he was striding along the shore road toward Kamakura, where the great bronze Buddha was lifting its face of dreamless calm. Now, perhaps, he was turning back toward the deepening blur of the green island. She shivered a little as she remembered the frown that had seemed to rest on the stony countenance of Ben-ten in her cave. Her thought drifted into to-morrow, when she was to give him her answer. Ah, she knew what that answer would be! She thought of the telegram of the night before, which she had read in the candle-lighted street! To-morrow Ware also was coming--for an answer! She knew what that would be, too. She felt a sudden pity for him. Yet she knew now--what wisdom she had gained in these two swift days!--that his was not the love that most deserved it. Daunt's parting kiss clung to her lips like a living flower. The hand he had clasped still burned to his touch; she lifted it and held it against her hot face, while the darkening carriage seemed to fill with the dank smell of salty wind and seaweed, mingled with his voice: "Barbara, I love you!--Dearest! Dearest!" * * * * * She thought the gesture unseen, unguessed by any one. But in the forward car, beyond the glass vestibule door, which to her was only a trembling mirror, a man sat watching with burning eyes. He had been gazing through the window when the train stopped, had risen to his feet with instant recognition--to shrink back into his seat, his fingers clenched, his bitten lip indrawn, and a pallor on his face. It was Austen Ware, and he had seen that kiss. CHAPTER XXXI THE COMING OF AUSTEN WARE Dusk purpled over the rice-fields as the train sped on. Still the man who had witnessed that farewell sat crouched in his seat in the forward car, stirless and pallid. From boyhood Austen Ware had trod a calculate path. Judicious, masterful, possessed, he had gone through life with none of the temptations that had lain in wait for his younger brother Phil. These traits were linked to a certain incapacity for bad luck and an unwearying tenaciousness of purpose. Seldom had any one seen his face change color, had seldom seen his poise of glacial complacency shaken.