nity. Was it born of the words of the
strange mountain prophet, or the impelling appeal of the no-less-strange
mountain child, whose mysterious smile, though seen less frequently than
on his first visit, still cast a spell over his senses, even in memory?
He could not say.

Whatever uncertainties had disturbed his heart before, when his thoughts
had turned upon her, none now remained. The die was cast. Smiles had
made her place in his life, and would always occupy it, but merely as a
dear charge and comrade. Half-child, half-woman, she still appealed to
him in both capacities as perhaps none other ever had; yet he could now
admit that fact frankly, and at the same time tell himself that there
was, there could be, nothing else.

With the mists of uncertainty dispelled, and his mind purged of the
passions which had, so unexpectedly, possessed it, Donald's life
returned to its old ruts. His work absorbed him as before, he accepted
Marion as more fully a part of his life than she had previously been,
and, in so doing, found an unexpected contentment. If, at times, he
still felt that she was not all that he might desire, at least she was
of his class and he understood her thoroughly.

"My work furnishes enough of romance for me," he sometimes thought.
"And, if I want to remain a civilized human being, I had better stick to
the life in which I was brought up. I never suspected how much of a
'cave man' I was until I got into the heart of the primitive. Whew!
Supposing I had killed Judd that afternoon! There were a few moments
when it would have been a pleasure to have done it. Or supposing he had
killed me! He wanted to, right enough. Puck was right."

And so, while the months passed, Fortune smiled on the brilliant young
physician, and daily laid new tributes of wealth, honor and affection at
his feet.

* * * * *

In the mountain cabin it was otherwise.

Changes, born of the travail of tragic happenings, cast their
ever-lengthening shadows over Smiles' life, blotting out the golden
sunlight of childhood, and overlaying it with the deeper tones of
womanhood.

Judd, her companion since baby days, she no longer called "friend," and
he, for his part, steadily avoided her and the cabin which had once been
a second home to him. Big Jerry, uncomplaining ever, day by day grew
more feeble and pain-wracked, and so became more and more a dear burden
to her. Only Mr. Talmadge, of her real intimate