of here," she protested,
to ward off any suspicions that might be lurking in his mind. "It is
n't that. I 'm perfectly safe."

He nodded, though he by no means agreed with her.

"It would be just the same," she insisted with almost too much
emphasis, "if Ben were well. I think I must have become panic stricken
with myself."

He frowned. Then he broke out fiercely,

"It's the feel of all the silent people in the city around you,
perhaps. They are ghosts, these strangers,--human ghosts with fingers
which clutch your throat if you are n't careful. You sense them in New
York as nowhere else."

She glanced up quickly,

"That's an odd idea," she replied. "The loneliness comes then because
you are n't really alone."

"Yes--here in New York."

"But that is n't true of the woods," she asserted.

"You have been much among the trees?" he asked quickly, his voice
softening.

"Not very much. But enough to learn to love them. Especially the
inner woods."

He knew what she meant--the forests where things still grow for the sky
and the beasts and not for man; where man may come as guest but not as
master.

"No," he answered, "one never feels alone there."

"In there," she faltered, trying to express vague thoughts which yet
were most real to her, "everything seems to be normal."

He studied her with increasing interest and a growing sense of
comradeship. Her eyes were wonderful as she sat chin in hands, gazing
into the fire, lost in some pleasant picture of the past. When he
looked into them, they caught him up again as they had done in the
cafe. They swept him to the rhythm of some haunting music back to the
days when his blood had run strong--back to the beauty of the hills at
twenty when he had not felt big enough by himself to absorb their full
marvel. In a dim mystical way he had realized even then that the
keenest edge of their meaning was escaping him. The blue sky above the
trees had seemed like the laughing eyes of a woman and the rustle of
leaves like the whisper of her skirt. He had laughed back boldly then,
feeling in the pride of his strength little need of them.

Now the eyes of this girl, and the soft modeling of every line of her,
filled him with an infinite tenderness for those forgotten hours. It
was as though she cleared away the intervening years and made him face
the fragrant Spring again. Without diminishing one whit of his
vigorous enjoyment of life, she added an element of