The warm days of May and June found Helen and me again riding over the low rolling country back of Deep Harbor. At least, that is what we did on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. On other days we rode at night, not without protest from Mrs. Claybourne. Fortunately, however, the trousseau kept her too deeply employed to offer much resistance.

Spring in that country was the same joy and wonder that it is in England. The fields stayed brown longer, perhaps, for vineyards are slow in coming into leaf, and Indian corn is not planted until late. The woods made up for any delay of the open fields. Such brilliant, tender greens of ferns and mosses, such strange and overpowering scents from grasses and leafy hollows! To be sure, we watched the panorama of spring and early summer with lovers' eyes, but I defy any one not to find that countryside an earthly paradise.

And at night, even in the darkness when there was no moon, we rode miles through velvety black, rich with the odours of growing things. Dogs would bark at our horses from farm-yard gates as we passed, and sleeping cattle near the road would lift drowsy heads in surprise at the sound of our horses' hoofs. There were no motor-cars to come roaring down at us from around corners with dazzling glare of monster eyes, or so few that they were not met on back country roads. We could ride on with loose rein, certain no danger was ahead. It was on these rides that we could really talk and get to know one another. Not that we had rushed at love in the autumn, ignorant of what we did. Yet it seemed as if each day we found new depths to explore and grew nearer to one another the further we went.

I can remember little of what we said or of what subjects we talked about. Much of it was lovers' talk, sometimes too absurd or trivial to put down in black and white, or else too sacred to come staring at one from the pages of a narrative. At other times we spoke of that future, now so near us, and built dream plans—a little cottage with a red-tiled roof to be somewhere in Hertfordshire, with a vegetable garden and standard rose trees; or again, we wandered in fancy through the mysteries of London, buying books off a stall in the Farringdon Road or sitting in some old church near the crossed feet of a Crusader. It was I who built up for her the dream pictures of England—the England of my childhood—the London which, once it is in one's blood, is there forever. Helen had never been abroad, and to her my stories were like those Othello told to Desdemona. She learned to know England in imagination and came to speak familiarly of it, as if she herself had grown up on its soil.

And yet we both loved America too. From a hilltop in May, looking across miles of open country to the blue lake, our hearts would swell with joy that so fair a land was ours. England was to be our country of adventure, in which, side by side, we were to seek fame and do our allotted task in life. We thought no less of one country for the joy with which we looked forward to the other.

On the first of July Knowlton and I turned the factory over to the representatives of the new owners. They were a New York corporation, and I was rather amused to observe that the general manager arrived with the same chip on his shoulder for Deep Harbor that I had first carried. He was a little, fussy man of about thirty-five, with a brown Van Dyke beard, and he asked me, with a haughty air, if I knew where there was anything fit to eat to be found.

"You have had breakfast at Shaefer's," I said. I could see Knowlton's grin over the corner of my shoulder. We were in his office at the factory.

"I have," Mr. Ebling replied, with a grimace.

"There is no place in Deep Harbor that calls itself a restaurant where you can get anything fit to eat, Mr. Ebling." I uttered this solemnly.

"Good God!" he exclaimed.

"But if you will lunch with me today, I can promise you satisfaction. I can also arrange a card for you at the club. It has a rather remarkable chef."

His gratitude was overpowering. Then we proceeded to sign endless papers, with some exchanges of difficulties between the lawyers of each party. I had a full power of attorney from my father to sign for him, and whenever a lawyer said "Here, if you please," I wrote my name with a flourish. At the end a certified check was handed to me, and I passed it on to Knowlton. Then Knowlton and I stood up. Our tenure was over.

As Mr. Ebling followed me out, I caught Knowlton stealing a last look at his little office. He lingered a moment by the shop door and watched the men at the machines, as we arrived downstairs. Since we were still to be in Deep Harbor for another month, there was no ceremony of saying good-bye. Some of the men, nevertheless, came up to shake hands with Knowlton and me. I hated to turn these workmen over to another management, and I saw Knowlton was thinking the same thing. He had built up an extraordinarily efficient and loyal set of men,—"hand-picked," he called them. I had a distinct impression that Mr. Ebling would not be so good a man to work for. His Van Dyke beard was against him. Also his eyes lacked a twinkle; in its stead was a look which showed that Mr. Ebling was the most important object to be considered.

The three of us walked away together, Mr. Ebling picking his way with some displeasure through the choking dust of our Twelfth Street:

"Where are we going, Ted? To the club?" Knowlton asked, as I kept on down Twelfth Street.

"Mr. Claybourne was kind enough to suggest that the three of us take luncheon with him at his residence. I thought we could walk to Myrtle Boulevard and point out some of our important plants to Mr. Ebling on the way. Over there," I said, turning to Ebling, "is the Deep Harbor Packing Company. Beyond is the Lakeside Casting and Manufacturing Company."

"Good God," exclaimed Mr. Ebling, stumbling over an empty tin can that lay in the middle of the street. Knowlton's grin widened and deepened. It grew positively diabolic as Mr. Ebling took a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and began flicking dust from his spats.

"Don't they ever water this confounded street?" he asked.

"Never," I replied. "Wait until August—this is nothing."

"Is there no way we can ride?" he inquired at the end of an interminable block of noisy and dirty buildings.

"The cars don't take us where we want to go," I replied. "We can soon turn down Wintergreen Street, and then we are almost there."

Knowlton, by now, was signalling me to be careful, but I was having too much fun. "That is a model plant," I continued, like a cathedral guide. "It's the Deep Harbor Wrought Iron Works. I understand that their power plant holds the world's record for the number of pounds of water evaporated per pound of coal."

Knowlton made a noise which sounded very much like a suppressed snort. Mr. Ebling politely adjusted his pince-nez and gazed at the brick walls. A freight train, the engine spitting live cinders and greasy smoke, clanged up the street between us and the model plant. Mr. Ebling shook cinders from his light grey Fedora hat, and wiped smut from his eyes.

I took mercy upon him at this point and turned down a side street leading toward the residence section.

"Really," Mr. Ebling protested, as we came to Myrtle Boulevard, "I'm not presentable enough to lunch with your friends. Please tell me the way back to the hotel." I would not hear of this, so he again made such a toilet as he could with his handkerchief. I rang the bell at the Claybournes', and in we went. Mr. Ebling's affability returned at once. Mrs. Claybourne was gracious and Helen deliciously demure. She sensed a joke somewhere from my manner, but could not guess what it was. A cocktail made Mr. Ebling expand. I could see another opinion of Deep Harbor visibly forming itself in his mind.

"We've just come from the plant," I said, as we sat down.

"Then you transferred across town from the square," remarked Mrs. Claybourne.

"No, we walked," I interrupted hastily. "I wanted to point out some of our plants to Mr. Ebling."

"Walked!" cried Mrs. Claybourne.

"I understood we could not get here except by walking," Mr. Ebling said, raising his eyebrows.

"Ted, you must be crazy," Mr. Claybourne chuckled. "You ride from your plant within a block of here every day."

"Ted thought Mr. Ebling would like to see the sights," Knowlton spoke in my defence.

"Yes, very interesting place from a commercial point of view. I enjoyed getting a general idea of the town."

Helen pinched me under the table, and I let out an unexpected "ouch."

"Helen!" said her mother. "What are you doing?"

"She pinched me and made me scream," I said. "It isn't fair."

"Those two children are engaged, Mr. Ebling," Mr. Claybourne interposed. "You'll have to pardon their bad manners."

Mr. Ebling lifted his eyebrows again. "Really? I congratulate you."

After luncheon Mr. Claybourne took over Mr. Ebling, and Knowlton carried me away to deposit our check at the bank. It was part of the agreement that Knowlton and I should work beside the new management for a month, until things ran smoothly.

"Don't play any more kid tricks on Ebling, Ted," Knowlton warned me as we parted at the bank. "You've done enough for today."

The great day was approaching; sometimes it seemed with great rapidity, and again I thought the end of the month would never come. The trousseau, with all kinds of shopping and trying things on, took up a great deal of Helen's time, and Mrs. Claybourne banished me for days on end. I did a lot of work in the laboratory, with the new chemist, to keep occupied, but I found it hard to take work seriously.

One morning Mrs. Claybourne informed me that she had made an appointment for me at eleven to call upon the minister who was to marry us. I had no chance to find out from Helen what this meant, but was bundled off to keep the engagement.

I entered his study with decidedly mixed feelings. It was reminiscent of going to the dentist's. He was a tall, sandy-haired elderly young man, with a fine but slightly stagey face. "Could play jeune premiers just as he stands," I thought, as he shook my hand and seated me in a deep leathern armchair.

"So you and Helen are to be married," he began, offering me a cigarette. It did not put me at my ease. The only suitable reply I could think of was "Yes—on the thirtieth." I lit the cigarette, hoping inspiration from it later.

"It is a solemn step you are taking," he continued. "Are you sure you have thoroughly searched your hearts?"

"If you mean, do we love each other, I think there is no doubt of it," I answered, the bristles on my back rising a trifle.

"Did you know I went to your college?" he asked, shifting the attack.

"No. What was your class?"

"Before your time, I think." He went on to tell me some reminiscences of Hilltown in his day. He had been a 'varsity half-back, and I remembered now the tradition of him that came down to our crowd. I was annoyed to discover that I was beginning to feel at ease. At last we reached the point. Would I go to communion with Helen the Sunday before our marriage?

I did not know what to say. I did not wish to hurt Mrs. Claybourne's feelings, but I did not see how I could, in honesty. I put my difficulty to him.

"My mother belongs to the Church of England," I explained, "and it is the only one I have ever attended—except cathedrals on the Continent. But I don't know what I believe."

"Do any of us?" he said with a rather wonderful softness in his eyes. "Do we have to believe anything? Isn't faith enough?"

I thought for a while. "I don't wish to commit perjury," I said.

He smiled. "You have faith enough to believe it would be perjury?"

"Or false pretences. Your church—the Episcopal—is a great tradition—one I respect as I do our other English-speaking traditions—all the things we stand for that make up the decent things of this world. I value all of it too much to lie about it. Don't you see?—I can't come to communion, for it means too much to come dishonestly."

"You are very young, Edward," he smiled with his hand on my shoulder. "Will you let an older man decide?"

"I wish I could," I said.

"If Helen comes, you surely won't stand aside?"

"But will she come? Have you asked her?"

His face clouded for a moment with a genuine look of pain.

"Don't you both wish to marry with clean hearts?"

"Yes," I answered, "and we shall. That is why I can't lie to please you."

I knew my retort was unfair, but I wanted him also to see my side. He stood a while looking down at me. It was clear there was nothing theatrical about this man's faith, however like an actor he might look. I knew he wanted to reach out to me and hold me with the faith that held him. Yet I could not yield. Had he perhaps been less in earnest, less sincere, I might have offered him lip-service for the sake of peace. His very strength gave me strength to resist. It had to be all or nothing. I got to my feet.

"I am sorry," I said, holding out my hand.

"I think you are, Edward," he answered, taking my hand in a firm grip. "You'll not urge Helen against it?"

"Helen's conscience is her own."

"Come, that's a good beginning. And because you are sorry to refuse, I have still hope." He smiled at me. I shook my head.

"At any rate, you'll come to church next Sunday?"

"Yes"—and with this compromise we parted.

Helen's friends vied with one another in giving us small dinner parties and dances during the last two weeks. There was no limit to the hospitality of Deep Harbor, once you were an accepted member of what was known as "the right people." If I dropped into Mr. Claybourne's down-town club of a late afternoon, a dozen crowded tables would invite me to sit down, with the greeting "We're just ordering a round, Ted. What will yours be?" I knew all the business men and the younger crowd of my own age, but none of them intimately. Knowlton, curiously enough, was on the same footing of apparent welcome, but he had not been invited to join either the country club or the down-town club. Miss Hershey's refusal to visé his passport kept him an outsider, even with the men. No one disliked him, and there was a general appreciation of his business sagacity, but he simply did not belong. I made several efforts to break down these bars for Knowlton. It was useless; they would not give way.

The whole social organization of Deep Harbor was an interesting study in practical democracy. The inner circle of business men, who seemed to treat a barber with the same intimate friendliness that they did each other, nevertheless were a close corporation into which it was not easy to gain admittance. The women were, of course, even more strict. A few men belonged to the down-town club whom we never saw at dinners or dances. There were only three streets on which it was permissible to live; Myrtle Boulevard was the chief of these, but two more, parallel to it, were allowable. On the connecting cross streets the newly married couples of "the right people" lived in two-family houses, against the day they would move to the important thoroughfare. A house anywhere else was taboo, unless one went right out into the country, on the country-club side of the town. It was a matter of considerable uneasiness to Mrs. Claybourne that my little study and bedroom was on the wrong side of State Street. I heard from her that that had been also one of the earlier objections to "taking me up." I had, however, stuck to my rooms, for they were both comfortable and inexpensive.

I do not pretend to know how the aristocracy of Deep Harbor came into being. Success, which implied the possession of brains as a corollary, coupled with long residence in the town, appeared to be the general basis of it. On the other hand, Knowlton had brains and had made a success of his work; yet he was excluded. Furthermore, the men all admitted that he was "a thorough good fellow" and "a good mixer," as they expressed it. I could see no logic in keeping him out. The essence of an aristocracy, though, is the absence of any logical premise for its elections. My position, of course, was solely owing to the Claybournes.

But I must not permit my reflections on the social mysteries of Deep Harbor to interrupt too long the narrative of events. A day came when our wedding was but three more days away. It was the last time Helen and I could ride together over the hills. The final hours, according to Mrs. Claybourne, were to be spent in such frenzied preparations as would entirely forbid my presence at the house, to say nothing of riding. We determined to make the most of this ride. We packed a luncheon, bought down-town, summoned Leonidas, and rode forth.

We went slowly, a little stunned by the fact that this was our last ride. Up the hill, past "Henery" Tyler's Five Mile Farm, was our way, for we wanted to retrace all the steps of that day which had opened our eyes. We stopped at the Tylers' for a word of greeting. "Henery" was not at home—he was "in the city somewheres, most likely as not wastin' his time," but Mrs. Tyler was delighted to see us, in spite of her momentary bitterness on the subject of "Henery."

"He'll be down-right sorry to miss you young folks," she said. "It's mighty nice of you to come 'way out here to say good-bye. But Henery's always gallivantin' round when he ought to be at home 'tending to the farm. Men is restless creatures anyway, Miss Helen. Won't you come in and set in the parlour? I've got some new milk cooling out in the shed."

We accepted and dismounted.

"Walk right in and make yourselves to home. I guess you better leave the dog outside. Dogs track up a house so."

With a hasty apology for her thoughtlessness, Helen tied Leonidas to the fence. We entered the familiar little room with its horsehair furniture and the conch shells in a glass case, and sat on the very sofa where Helen had lain that evening with a wrenched knee. Mrs. Tyler disappeared in search of the milk. In a few minutes she returned with milk, a plate of cookies, and a jar of apple-butter.

"Kind of warm today," she rattled on, busy with her offering of hospitality, "but I guess we've got to expect a little hot weather in July. Milk's mighty refreshing on a warm day, 'specially if you been exercisin'. Help yourself to the apple-butter, Miss Helen. It's a good spread on cookies."

We sat and ate, grateful for her genuine friendliness. Her cookies would have taken a prize anywhere.

"Seems like it was only yesterday, Miss Helen, when you used to be in short dresses and drive out by here with your father on the way to the old cider mill. And to think of you gettin' married and goin' off across the ocean to live! Must be pretty hard on your mother to lose her daughter that way. 'Tain't as if you was to have your home across the street. I never had any children, so I ain't had to suffer. Sometimes I think it's a blessin' when I hear of the goings-on of the young folk today. Well, you never know how things might have been. Takes all my time to keep up with what is. It's the Lord's will, I tell Henery—He knows best. Take another glass of milk, Miss Helen. There's plenty more where that come from. Feed's gettin' scarce, though. It dries up in this weather."

We chatted awhile with Mrs. Tyler—perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we inserted with difficulty monosyllables at intervals into her monologue—and finally persuaded her to let us go.

A little further up the road we paused again at what we thought was about the spot where Helen's horse had fallen with her. We slid off our saddles and sat on the bank by the roadside, staring at the patch of dusty road where the miracle had been revealed to us.

"It seems years and years ago, Ted," Helen whispered. "I can't remember very much back of it. I just feel as if we had always known each other."

"In Avalon a day is a thousand years," I whispered back as she put her head against my shoulder. "Count up the number of days and see how many thousand years we have lived."

Deep Harbor lay in a smoky haze below us, and the lake beyond shimmered blue and silver in the July sun. The yellow road went straight down the hill toward the town. Across the distant fields the steam of a passing train trailed across the tops of the trees. I watched Helen's grey eyes staring at each familiar detail of her home—for the whole lay spread at our feet. The grey deepened and turned a little misty at last.

"Forgive me, Ted," she said, clinging tightly to me, "but it hurts a little to go, even with you." I kissed her wet eyes and said n............