Andrew the Glad

"This is the edge of the world," she said softly. "Do you remember your

little verses about the death of the stars?" She turned and raised her

eyes to his. "We are holding a death-watch beside them now as the moon

comes up over the ridge there. When I read the poem I felt breathless to

get out somewhere high up and away from things--and watch."

"I was 'high up' when I wrote them," answered Andrew with a laugh. "Look

over there on the hill--see those two old locusts? They are fern palms

and those scrub oaks are palmettos. The white frost makes the meadow a

lagoon and this rock is the pier of my bridge where I came out to watch

one night to test the force of a freshet. Over there the light from Mrs.

Matilda's fires is the construction camp and beyond that hill is my

bungalow. That's the same old moon that's rising relentlessly to murder

the stars again. Do you want to stay and watch the tragedy--or hunt?"

Without a word Caroline sank down on the dried leaves that lay in a drift

on the edge of the bluff. Andrew crouched close beside her to the

windward. And the ruthless old moon that was putting the stars out of

business by the second was not in the least abashed to find them gazing

at her as she blustered up over the ridge, round and red with exertion.

"Were you alone on that pier?" asked Caroline with the utmost naïveté, as

she snuggled down deeper into the collar of the sweater.

"I'm generally alone--in most ways," answered Andrew, the suspicion of a

laugh covering the sadness in his tone. "I seem to see myself going

through life alone unless something happens--quick!" The bitter note

sounded plainly this time and cut with an ache into her consciousness.

"I've been a little lonely, too--always, until just lately and now I

don't feel that way at all;" she looked at him thoughtfully with moonlit

eyes that were deep like sapphires. "I wonder why?"

Andrew Sevier's heart stopped dead still for a second and then began to

pound in his breast as if entrapped. For the moment his voice was utterly

useless and he prayed helplessly for a meed of self-control that might

aid him to gain a sane footing.

Then just at that moment the old genie of the forests, who gloats through

the seasons over myriads of wooings that are carried on in the fastnesses

of his green woods, sounded a long, low, guttural groan that rose to a

blood-curdling shriek, from the branches just above the head of the

moon-mad man and girl. For an instrument he used the throat of an enraged

old hoot-owl, perturbed by the intrusion of the noise of the distant hunt

and the low-voiced conversation on his wonted privacy.