not as it
happened.

Joyce delivered a little lecture on the culture of roses, not because she
considered herself an authority, but because her guest's conversation was
mostly of the monosyllabic order. He was not awkward or self-conscious;
rather a man given to silence.

"Say, Mr. Sanders, how does it feel to be wounded?" Keith blurted out.

"You mustn't ask personal questions, Keith," his sister told him.

"Oh! Well, I already ast this one?" the boy suggested ingenuously.

"Don't know, Keith," answered the young man. "I never was really wounded.
If you mean this scratch in the shoulder, I hardly felt it at all till
afterward."

"Golly! I'll bet I wouldn't tackle a feller shootin' at me the way that
Miller was at you," the youngster commented in naive admiration.

"Bedtime for li'l boys, Keith," his sister reminded him.

"Oh, lemme stay up a while longer," he begged.

Joyce was firm. She had schooled her impulses to resist the little
fellow's blandishments, but Dave noticed that she was affectionate even
in her refusal.

"I'll come up and say good-night after a while, Keithie," she promised as
she kissed him.

To the gaunt-faced man watching them she was the symbol of all most to be
desired in woman. She embodied youth, health, charm. She was life's
springtime, its promise of fulfillment; yet already an immaculate Madonna
in the beauty of her generous soul. He was young enough in his knowledge
of her sex to be unaware that nature often gives soft trout-pool eyes of
tenderness to coquettes and wonderful hair with the lights and shadows of
an autumn-painted valley to giggling fools. Joyce was neither coquette
nor fool. She was essential woman in the making, with all the faults and
fine brave impulses of her years. Unconsciously, perhaps, she was showing
her best side to her guest, as maidens have done to men since Eve first
smiled on Adam.

Dave had closed his heart to love. It was to have no room in his life. To
his morbid sensibilities the shadow of the prison walls still stretched
between him and Joyce. It did not matter that he was innocent, that all
his small world would soon know of his vindication. The fact stood. For
years he had been shut away from men, a leprous thing labeled "Unclean!"
He had dwelt in a place of furtive whisperings, of sinister sounds. His
nostrils had inhaled the odor of musty clothes and steamed food. His
fingers had touched moisture sweating through the walls, and in his small