They knew this--they felt it instinctively, as with a common impulse they turned and looked back upon the glowing earth and sea and sky, the breaking surf, the beach, the distant, rime-incrusted, ancient fort--all that scene that to their eyes stood for the dear, free, careless companionship of those last few months.
Their new-found happiness was not without its sadness already.

All was over now; their solitary walks, the long, still evenings in the little dining-room overlooking the sleeping city, their excursions to Luna's, their afternoons spent in the golden Chinese balcony, their mornings on the lake, calm and still and hot.

Forever and forever they had said good-by to that life.

Already the sunset was losing its glory.
Then, with one last look, they turned about and set their faces from it to the new life, to the East, where lay the Nation.

Out beyond the purple bulwarks of the Sierras, far off, the great, grim world went clashing through its grooves--the world that now they were to know, the world that called to them, and woke them, and roused them.