ight as from a camp fire, Brian drifted unquietly, conscious of odd
and unrelated things, stars that turned to eyes, a moonbeam that broke
upon a pine-bough and fell in a shower of moon-silvered tears; in the
tears a face that turned perversely to a pansy. Then something snapped
and crackled sharply and he sat beside a camp fire, conscious of an
indefinable fusing within him. Beyond in a curling milk-white mist lay
the pansy, half a flower--half a face. It floated toward him,
sometimes part of the smoke from his fire, sometimes but a
flower-shadow in the cloud of purple. Brian strained to see it clearly
and could not until the inner fusing came again and Joan stood by the
fire, the sheen of moonlight on her hair.

"You did so much for him," she said, "and now--the boulder!"

Brian furrowed his forehead in painful concentration.

"I thought I did it all for Don," he said. "For months I've thought so
but since something fused here in my heart, something linked to tears
and stars and moonlight and the crackle of a fire, I know I did it all
for you."

"For me, Brian!"

"For you!"

In the cloud of purple Joan's eyes grew round and unbelieving.

"Your face, all tears and sorrow and sweetness," said Brian stubbornly,
"etched itself on my memory the night Don ran away."

"I--I did not know you saw me."

"I know now that all I did that night I did for you. Don swore at
you--remember?"

The flower-like face in the purple cloud saddened. Brian distinctly
heard the crackle of the camp fire.

"I thrashed him for it!"

"You said in your letter--"

"I said I would help him, yes, but I wrote and I made Don write because
I could not bear to have you hurt and worried. And even at the quarry,
when I was keen to be off to Whitaker, I saw your face in the mist,
urging me to stay--to stay and help Don. And I did--for you. I know
that all these things I did for you. I _know_!"

But again he was staring at a pansy and the cloud of purple floated
hazily away. Tired, ill and aeons old, Brian opened his eyes.

"I'm glad you're awake," said Joan gently. "You were dreaming. Drugs
frighten me."

"Nothing was clear," said Brian, touching his forehead, "but the pansy
and you. And purple--like that." He pointed to her ring. "What an
odd ring it is, Joan! Wistaria?"

Joan nodded, her color bright.

"Wistaria on a ladder. It's the ring Kenny gave me."

Brian's startled eyes met and held her own. "Why?" he aske