For a long time, the two girls stood there, side by side, Eveley looking into the haze of the sea miles below, Miriam staring down through the pines to where she knew a car might be waiting in the shadows.

"We must not keep him waiting," she said at last.

Without a word, they turned, hand in hand and started down to the road again. When she saw the little, well-known car beneath the trees, and Lem standing rigid beside it, she caught her breath suddenly. Eveley would have hung back, to let her greet her husband alone, but Miriam clung to her hand and pulled her forward.

He came to meet them, awkwardly, a gleam of hope in his eyes, but meekness in his manner. He held out his hand, and Miriam with a little flutter dropped her own into it, pulling it quickly away again.

"Are you--all right, Lem? You look--thin," she said with shy solicitude.

"I feel thin," he replied grimly. "Are--you coming with us?"

"Yes, of course," said Eveley.

"Yes, of course," Miriam echoed faintly.

"Shall I drive?" suggested Eveley, antic.i.p.ating complete reconciliation for the two in their first moment of privacy.

"I will drive," said Lem. "You girls sit in the back. Did Eveley explain that I only expect to be--your driver, and your valet, and your servant--for a while."

Tears brightened in Miriam's eyes. "Oh, Lem," she cried, holding out her hands. "How can people talk of servants who have loved--as we have loved?"

Eveley immediately went into a deep and concentrated study of the rear tires, for Miriam was close in her husband's arms, and his tears were falling upon her fragrant curls.

After a while, he held her away from him and looked into her tender face.

"It isn't--you aren't coming, then, just because it is your duty to give me every chance," he whispered.

"Oh, no, dear, just because I love you."

Eveley was still utterly immersed in the condition of the tires.

"We'll try it again, Lem--"

"Oh, Miriam," he broke in, "it isn't any trial this time. This is marriage."

Eventually they got started toward home and had driven many miles before Miriam noticed that her uncovered hair was blowing in the wind, and remembered that she had left the ranch without notice and that all her things were there. But what were simple things and formal notices when human hearts were finding happiness and faith?

In the Cloud Cote, Eve's friends were patiently awaiting her return.

Nolan was reading poetry aloud to himself in the roof garden, and Lieutenant Ames was laboriously picking chords on the piano, with Marie near him strumming on the mandolin.

The first creak of the rustic stair brought them all to the landing to greet her.

"Reconciliation," shouted Nolan, before she was half-way up. "Miriam is home, and they have already lived happily ever after."

Eveley began immediately to give an account of the day's happenings standing motionless on the third step from the top until she finished her recital.

Then she went back down, and gave an impatient tap on the seventh stair.

"Well, you started something," she said to it solemnly. "And you ought to be satisfied now, if anybody is. To-morrow I shall crown you with a wreath of laurel."

Then she went up again. "Does this do anything to your theory about duty?" asked Nolan. "Does it prove it, or disprove it, or what? I can not seem to get any connection."

"But there is a connection," she said, with a smile. "It absolutely and everlastingly proves the Exception."

"Eveley Ainsworth, don't ever say exception again until you can explain it," cried Nolan. "I dream of exceptions by night, and I legalize them by day. Be a nice girl, and do a good deed this Sabbath Day by expounding the virtues of the One Exception."

But Eveley was hungry, and said she could not expound anything when her system clamored for tea.

Eveley's Sabbath, however, was not yet ended. While she was blissfully sipping her tea, the three she loved best in the world about her, there came a gentle tap upon her window, and Mrs. Severs walked in.

"So sorry to bother you, Miss Ainsworth," she began apologetically, "but I want to ask a favor. Father is moving back with us to-day, and--"

"What!"

"Yes, indeed he is," she cried blithely. "I was so lonesome, and some days I am so ill, that I asked him as a personal favor if he wouldn't come and try me just once more, and he said, Holy Mackinaw! he had been aching to do that very thing."

"Well," Eveley said judiciously, "I suppose you will all be satisfied now that you are back in your old rut wretchedly doing your duty by each other."

"I should say not," denied Mrs. Severs promptly. "I asked father to come because I--like him awfully much, and it is so lonely without him, and he is coming because he missed us and is fond of us, and there isn't any duty about it. You have converted us. We do not believe in duty."

"And the favor?"

"Yes--father is bringing the flivver of course--and the garage is so big.

Do you mind if we keep it there with your car? We will pay any extra rent, of course."

"Keep it there by all means," said Eveley generously. "And there is no rent. And when I get stuck anywhere I shall expect you to tow me home for love." And when Mrs. Severs had gone, Eveley said: "Make another pot of tea, please, Marie. Make two pots--three if you like."

"Pretty hard to keep some people properly adjusted, isn't it?" asked Nolan soberly, but with laughter in his eyes.

"What is proved by the case of Father-in-law and the Bride, Eveley?"

asked Marie with a soft teasing smile as she refilled Eveley's cup.

But Eveley went into a remote corner of the room, and brandished the bread knife for protection, before she cried triumphantly:

"The Exception. It is another positive proof of the utter efficacy of my One Exception."

CHAPTER XIX

SHE DOUBTS HER THEORY

One morning Eveley telephoned from the office to Marie that she would not be home for dinner that night, as she was going with Kitty to hear the minute details of her engagement, and the plans of her coming marriage with Arnold. She a.s.sured Marie that she would be home early, begged her not to be lonesome, cautioned her once more not to venture into the canyon after nightfall, and went serenely on her way.

At ten o'clock that night she guided her car into the garage whistling boyishly, and ran up the rustic stairs, stopping with painful suddenness on the landing as she observed there was no light in the Cote.