abstractedly at the white moon; he was farther back, crammed like
a grotesque god into a niche in the rock.

"I don't want to sound like Pollyanna," she began, "but you
haven't grasped me yet. My courage is faith--faith in the eternal
resilience of me--that joy'll come back, and hope and
spontaneity. And I feel that till it does I've got to keep my
lips shut and my chin high, and my eyes wide--not necessarily any
silly smiling. Oh, I've been through hell without a whine quite
often--and the female hell is deadlier than the male."

"But supposing," suggested Carlyle" that before joy and hope and
all that came back the curtain was drawn on you for good?"

Ardita rose, and going to the wall climbed with some difficulty
to the next ledge, another ten or fifteen feet above.

"Why," she called back "then I'd have won!"

He edged out till he could see her.

"Better not dive from there! You'll break your back," he said
quickly.

She laughed.

"Not I!"

Slowly she spread her arms and stood there swan-like, radiating a
pride in her young perfection that lit a warm glow in Carlyle's