"
He smiled for the joy of his picture, and she turned her head from him,
seeing the prospect through clouded eyes.
"You'll never go out of my house," she said in a low voice.
"Other spirits will come into it and fill it up."
A wish that anything might stop the slow advance to this roseate future
choked her. She sat with averted face wrestling with her sick
distaste, and heard him say:
"You don't know how happy you're going to be, my little Missy."
She could find no answer, and he went on: "You have everything for it,
health and youth and a pure heart and David for your mate."
She had to speak now and said with urgence, trying to encourage
herself, since no one else could do it for her,
"But that's all in the future, a long time from now."
"Not so very long. We ought to be in California in five or six weeks."
To have the dreaded reality suddenly brought so close, set at the limit
of a few short weeks, grimly waiting at a definite point in the
distance, made her repugnance break loose in alarmed words.
"Longer than that," she cried. "The desert's the hardest place, and
we'll go slow, very slow, there.
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