"It will merely make our walk back to town the longer, and that is what I like."
But she, who had lived her life on the plains and in the mountains, was not so sure. She knew that they had walked far, because not even the smoke of Grafton could be seen now. Yet he was with her.
"Suppose we try that direction," she assented.
"And if it isn't right, we will try another; our train stays at Grafton all day."
They walked on, saying to each other the little things that mean nothing to others, but which lovers love, and Grafton yet lay hidden in its place between the swells. The skies, changing now from a bright to a steely gray, were unmarred by a single wisp of smoke.
Harley felt at last an uneasiness which increased gradually as they went on; the country was provokingly monotonous, one swell was like another, and the dips between were just the same; there were patches of brown grass eaten down by cattle, but mostly the soil was bare; it seemed to Harley, at that moment, a weary and ugly land, but it set off the star in the midst of it—Sylvia—like a diamond in the dust. He looked up; the mountains, before blue and distinct in the clear sky, were now gray and vague.
"We must have walked fast and far," he said. "Look how that range of mountains has moved away."
Sylvia looked, and her face whitened again.
"It is not distance, John," she said. "It is a mist. See, the clouds are coming!"
The mountains moved farther away and became shadowy; the steel-gray of the skies darkened; up from the southwest rolled ugly brown clouds; there was a rush of chill air.