She, too, suddenly apprehensive, sat rigid, the smile dying out in her eyes; and when he finally took the envelope and tore it open, she shivered.
"Ophir has consolidated with Steel Plank. You take charge of London office. Make arrangements to catch steamer leaving a week from to-morrow. Garcide and I will be at Sagamore to-night. JAMES J. CRAWFORD."
He sat staring at the telegram; she, vaguely apprehensive for the safety of this new happiness of hers, clasped her hands tightly in her lap and waited.
Crawford took the offered telegram blank and mechanically wrote:
"Instructions received. Will expect you and Garcide to-night. JAMES CRAWFORD."
She sat, twisting her fingers on her knees, watching him in growing apprehension. The steward took the telegram.
Crawford looked at her with a ghastly smile.
They rose together, instinctively, and walked to the porch.
"Oh yes," he said, under his breath, "such happiness was too perfect. Magic is magic--it never lasts."
He picked up his cap, which was lying on a chair.
"Let's get away, somewhere," he said. "Do you mind coming with me--alone?"
There was a canoe on the river-bank below the lawn. He took a paddle and setting-pole from the veranda wall, and they went down to the river, side by side.
Heedless of the protests of the scandalized belted kingfishers, they embarked on Sagamore Water.
The paddle flashed in the sunlight; the quick river caught the blade, the spray floated shoreward.
Late in the afternoon the canoe, heavily festooned with dripping water-lilies, moved like a shadow over the shining sands. The tall hemlocks walled the river with palisades unbroken; the calm water stretched away into the forest's sombre depths, barred here and there by dusty sunbeams.
Over them, in the highest depths of the unclouded blue, towered an eagle, suspended from mid-zenith. Under them the shadow of their craft swept the yellow gravel.
Knee to knee, vis-à-vis, wrapped to their souls in the enchantment of each other, sat the entranced voyagers. Their rods lay idle beside them; life was serious just then for people who stood on the threshold of separation.
"I simply shall depart this life if you go to-morrow," she said, looking at him.
The unfeigned misery in his face made her smile adorably, but she would not permit him to touch her.