"When I read David's letter," she went on, "he was winter-bound in the interior. A reply could not have reached him until spring. And meantime Elizabeth Morganstein came with her mother to the hotel. We had been, friends at boarding-school, and she persuaded me to go north to Seattle with them. Later, after the _Aquila_ was launched in the spring, I was invited to join the family on a cruise up the inside passage and across the top of the Pacific to Prince William Sound. It seemed so much easier to tell David everything than to write, so--I only let him know I intended to sail to Valdez with friends and would go on by mail steamer to Seward to visit him. That had been his last post-office address, and I believed he expected to be in that neighborhood when the season opened. But our stay was lengthened at Juneau, where we were entertained by acquaintances of Mrs. Feversham's, and we spent a long time around Taku glacier and the Muir. I missed my steamer connections, and there was not another boat due within a week. But the weather was delightful, and Mr. Morganstein suggested taking me on in the yacht. Then Mrs. Feversham proposed a side trip along Columbia glacier and into College fiord. It was all very wonderful to me, and inspiring; the salt air had been a restorative from the start. And I saw no reason to hurry the party. David would understand. So, the second mail steamer passed us, and finally, when we reached Seward, David had gone back to the interior. The rest--you know." "You mean," said Tisdale slowly, "you heard about Mrs. Barbour." She bowed affirmatively. The color swept in a wave to her face; her lashes fell. "Mrs. Feversham heard about it, how David had brought her down from the interior. I saw the cabin he had furnished for her, and she herself, sewing at the window. Her face was beautiful." There was a silence, then Hollis said: "So you came back on the _Aquila_ to Seattle. But you wrote; you explained about the child?" She shook her head. "I waited to hear from David first. I did not know, then, that the letter with Silva's picture was lost." Tisdale squared his shoulders, looking off again to the snow-peaks above Cerberus.