upon the most complete breaking up of his domestic life. It persisted
in shadowing forth scenes in which he and Doris took part, in which it
was made plain how and why they could no longer live together. In
Hollister's mind these scenes always ended by his crying despairingly
"If you can't, why, you can't, I suppose. I don't blame you." And he
would give her the bigger half of his funds and go his way. He would
not blame her for feeling like that. Nevertheless, Hollister had
moments when he felt that he would hate her if she did,--a paradox he
could not understand.

He slept--or at least tried to sleep--that night alone in his house.
He cooked his breakfast and worked on the boom until midday, then
climbed the hill to the camp and ate lunch with his men. He worked up
there till evening and came down in the dusk. He dreaded that lonely
house, those deserted rooms. But he forced himself to abide there. He
had a dim idea of so disciplining his feelings, of attaining a numbed
acquiescence in what he could not help.

Some one had been in the house. The breakfast dishes were washed, the
dust cleared away, the floor swept, his bed made. He wondered, but
gave credit to Lawanne. It was like Archie to send his Chinese boy to
perform those tasks.

But it was Myra, he discovered by and by. He came off the hill in
mid-afternoon two days later and found her clearing up the kitchen.

"You don't mind, do you?" she asked. "I have nothing much to do at
home, and it seems a shame for everything here to be neglected. When
is Doris coming back?"

"I don't know exactly. Perhaps two or three weeks, perhaps as many
months."

"But her eyes will be all right again?"

"So they say."

Hollister went out and sat on the front doorstep. His mind sought to
span the distance to Vancouver. He wondered what Doris was doing. He
could see her sitting in a shaded room. He could see young Robert
waving fat arms out of the cushioned depths of his carriage. He could
see the sun glittering on the sea that spread away westward, from
beneath the windows of the house where they lived. And Doris would sit
there anticipating the sight of all those things which had been hidden
in a three-year night,--the sea rippling in the sun, the distant
purple hills, the nearer green of the forest and of grass and flowers,
all the light and color that made the world beautiful. She would be
looking forward to seeing him. And that was the stroke which Hollister
dreaded