The morning of the last day of their visit dawned bright and clear; and Millicent, standing on the terrace, thought the wide view had never seemed so beautiful before. She was taking farewell of that sea which had so nearly swallowed her young life with all its hopes and fears. The waves murmured with a gentle sound, as if quite oblivious of their late rapacity. She went out into the thick pine woods behind the house, and stood for the last time among the great redwoods, which to her were so wonderful, and which everybody else accepted as a matter of course. A well-known footstep behind her on the dry leaves caused the slight pink tinge which the morning breeze had brought to her cheek to fade suddenly; the blood seemed rushing from every vein back to its source, and her heart stopped its pulsations for a moment. She did not turn her head, but stood quite silent, waiting for Graham’s first word. When he was at her side, she felt her hand suddenly caught in a warm pressure which sent the blood rushing through the arteries again, tingling painfully in every fibre of her body, and loosening the cold silence of the heart, which beat out a quick answer to the words of greeting. They were but few and very earnest, the words of a brave man glad to be beholden to so fair a woman for his life. Was it gratitude that made his voice tremble, that lighted his grave eyes with a smile?
She answered him sweetly and seriously, with a steady voice and calm eyes, though the rose-flush flooded and ebbed from her cheek and brow. The man did not trouble himself to analyze the feelings which gave rise to the fleeting blushes; he was too full of his own enthusiasm to notice how it affected its object. He spoke as he felt and thought of the woman standing there so full of life and beauty,--only in the light of his relation to her. He knew how he felt towards her, and told her so with admiring frankness; of her feelings towards himself he never stopped to think. His was an egotistic nature, as are those of all strong men whose personality stamps the age in which they live. Weaker men and women receive the imprint of their time; only the few strong ones leave their images impressed when the soft clay of the present is transmitted into the unmalleable granite of the past.