old auditorium--and why and whence the change now? That puzzled her. One
thing was curious--through it all, as far back as she could remember,
her feeling for him had never changed, except lately. Perhaps it was an
unconscious response in her to the nobler change that in spite of his
new hardness her instinct told her was at work in him.

She was leaning on the fence now, her elbow on the top plank, her hand
under her chin, and her face uplifted--the moon lighting her hair, her
face, and eyes, and her voice the voice of one slowly threading the
mazes of a half-forgotten dream. Crittenden's own face grew tense as he
watched her. There was a tone in her voice that he had hungered for all
his life; that he had never heard but in his imaginings and in his
dreams; that he had heard sounding in the ears of another and sounding
at the same time the death-knell of the one hope that until now had made
effort worth while. All evening she had played about his spirit as a
wistful, changeful light will play over the fields when the moon is
bright and clouds run swiftly. She turned on him like a flame now.

"Until lately," she was saying, and she was not saying at all what she
meant to say; but here lately a change was taking place; something had
come into her feeling for him that was new and strange--she could not
understand--perhaps it had always been there; perhaps she was merely
becoming conscious of it. And when she thought, as she had been thinking
all day, of his long years of devotion--how badly she had requited
them--it seemed that the least she could do was to tell him that he was
now first in her life of all men--that much she could say; and perhaps
he had always been, she did not know; perhaps, now that the half-gods
were gone, it was at last the coming of the--the--She was deeply
agitated now; her voice was trembling; she faltered, and she turned
suddenly, sharply, and with a little catch in her breath, her lips and