They sat long afterward on a warm slope in the sun. Crickets hopped about them; Charles-Norton at intervals heard by his side Dolly's musical giggle as one of them struck her. A bird on a long twig balanced above them, and for a time a squirrel chattered at them in mock scolding from the top of a pine. Little by little Charles-Norton sank into a profundity of well-being. He could see ahead, now, his life stretching placid and colored, solved at last, with both Dolly and the wings, uniting love and freedom, the ecstasies of flight with the tenderness of home---- "Goosie," said Dolly; "let's go in." The sun was gone. It had sunk into the plain, far off. "Wait," he whispered, looking toward the crest, inflamed with living light. The peaks gleamed, the domes glowed, the glaciers flashed, the whole sky-line crackled with a great band of color. Then swiftly from the plain a shadow ran up the mountain sides, extinguished, one after the other, peak, and dome, and glacier; it went up toward the clouds with its long swift lope: the clouds became burned rags. "Let us go in," said Dolly. "Wait," he said. The night was pouring in over the crest, filling the meadow, the dome above; a velvety blueness palpitated vaguely about them; a star, as if touched by an unseen torch, suddenly sprang to light. "Wait," murmured Charles-Norton; "it is beautiful at this hour." But Dolly pressed against him with a little shiver. "I'm cold, Goosie," she cried; "let us go in." They rose, went down the slope and across the meadow. Along the grass a frigid little haze was forming; it was true that it was cold. If Charles-Norton had been a practical man he would have observed that for the last two weeks, in fact, the nights had been growing more and more cold--which might have introduced a disturbing factor in his dream of the coming days. But Charles-Norton, as has been seen, was not a practical man. They sat within, by a glowing fire. "It's nice to be home," said Dolly. "It's fine," said Charles-Norton, stoutly. CHAPTER XV