"Yes," answered Sir Percy, "there is a time when a man is ready to surrender, but I never saw the time when you, my Lady Lucy, were ready to surrender."
"Quite true," replied Lady Carlyon, smiling and glancing at her husband under her long lashes, "but, after all, wasn't Mrs. March braver than I?"
"Perhaps so," answered Sir Percy. "She is altogether the strangest woman I ever knew. I had thought her one of the worst, yet behold she has buried herself in the wilderness with March, has given over all that once seemed essential to her, and has cried quits with the world."
* * * * *
The spring in the Sierras was not so far advanced as in Washington, but the sun shone bravely and the birds, who rested under the southern eaves of the little adobe house on the mountain-side, flashed back and forth merrily in the clear, blue air. The place had undergone the subtle change which a woman's presence makes everywhere. Another room or two and a rude veranda had been added to the original structure. Blooming plants at the open windows leaned their bold, pretty faces to the sun; a table on the veranda held magazines and books, and a woman's shawl was thrown over the back of a rustic chair. A little dog--a woman's dog--was racing gaily up and down the sunny plateau on which the little house stood. All around was the serene stillness of the mountains and far below in the valleys could be heard through the thin, sharp air the tinkle of a sheep bell and a faint echo of the herdsman's voice. Standing in the golden glow of the sun was Roger March. He had a book in his hand, but was not reading it, and looked towards a little garden which had been made on the southern slope of the hillside. A woman in a garden hat was kneeling down before a bed of violets picking a few blossoms which had dared to show their downcast faces to the rude world. Roger March strolled towards the kneeling woman, who rose and met him half way, holding out her hand filled with violets. It was Alicia.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHIRL ***