of violets.

"'In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
love,'" he mused. "It's good, even for _me_, to be alive this
morning.... These violets, the birds, the fresh smells, the bursting
green! Oh, well, regrets are idle. But just to think--I had to go
through all I've known--right down to this moment--to realize how
stingingly sweet life is...."

Mel answered his knock, and sight of her face seemed to lift his heart
with an unwonted throb. Had he unconsciously needed that? The thought
made his greeting, and the tender of the violets, awkward for him.

"Violets! Oh, and spring! Daren, it was good of you to gather them for
me. I remember.... But I told you not to come again."

"Yes, I know you did," he replied. "But I've disobeyed you. I wanted
to see you, Mel.... I didn't know how badly until I got here."

"You should not want to see me at all. People will talk."

"So you care what people say of you?" he questioned, feigning
surprise.

"Of me? No. I was thinking of you."

"You fear the poison tongues for me? Well, they cannot harm me. I'm
beyond tongues or minds like those."

She regarded him earnestly, with serious gravity and slowly dawning
apprehension; then, turning to arrange the violets in a tiny vase, she
shook her head.

"Daren, you're beyond me, too. I feel a--a change in you. Have you had
another sick spell?"

"Only for a day off and on. I'm really pretty well to-day. But I have
changed. I feel that, yet I don't know how."

Lane could talk to her. She stirred him, drew him out of himself. He
felt a strange desire for her sympathy, and a keen curiosity
concerning her opinions.

"I thought maybe you'd been ill again or perhaps upset by the
consequences of your--your action at Fanchon Smith's party."

"Who told you of that?" he asked in surprise.

"Dal. She was here yesterday. She will come in spite of me."

"So will I," interposed Lane.

She shook her head. "No, it's different for a man.... I've missed the
girls. No one but Dal ever comes. I thought Margie would be true to
me--no matter what had befallen.... Dal comes, and oh, Daren, she is
good. She helps me so.... She told me what you did at Fanchon's
party."

"She did! Well, what's your verdict?" he queried, grimly. "That break
queered me in Middleville."

"I agree with what Doctor Wallace said to his congregation," returned
Mel.

As Lane met the blue fire of her eyes he experienced another
singularly deep and