Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/321

Rh Perhaps you could think of it with equanimity; but it is beyond me—when one loves anybody as I do you, two weeks"

"I know, I know!" cried Daphne. "I can't bear to think of it either. But, Ken"

Daphne had been brought up in a household over which had hovered the menace of tuberculosis. She had acquired an instinctive horror that was even a little unreasonable. In the end it was decided that Kenneth should go. A letter from Corbell announcing the pigeons and inviting to a shoot decided the matter. The moment of parting was heartrending. It had been agreed that they were to write to one another every day, and the thought had been minutely comforting until some unkind little inner common-sense devil had pointed out that the stages only run once a week. That nearly wrecked the whole expedition. Ken was going nowhere, no matter what the consequences, where he would not hear for one whole week! They worked back slowly against this tide. Finally they arranged to write seven letters at a time, starting now; and to read one a day. Not very satisfactory, but it sufficed. Likewise they picked out a star that could be looked at—undoubtedly to its embarrassment—by both at a certain hour. Other psychically suggestive arrangements were made. Neverthless [sic] at the last moment they seemed pitifully inadequate; and if Kenneth could decently have drawn back he would have done so. But that would have been a trifle difficult, considering that he had already sent on his equipment by the stage. So he climbed his horse and rode away, with a sunken sort of feeling that it was all silly, useless; was going to be a bore, and that his main job in life was now to tackle empty days courageously.

This attitude lasted to the foot of the Pass. Then it lightened somewhat under the influence of the sun, the blue sky, the faint aromas from the warmed chaparral, and the spirit-lifting climb toward higher levels. When he topped the range and began his descent into the less familiar country, try as he would he could not keep his spirits down. He did his conscientious best. He thought of Daphne, and how long it was going to be before he saw her again, and all the rest of it, and he whipped his mind into single contemplation of this distressing situation. But