ent back to his
"pigsty" with Jim. To Gabriel Druse he had said all that one man might
say to another without excess of feeling; to Madame Bulteel he had given
a gold pencil which he had always worn; to Fleda he gave nothing, said
little, but the few words he did say told the story, if not the whole
story.

"It's a nice room," he said, and she had flushed at his words, "and I've
had the best time of my life in it. I'd like to buy it, but I know it's
not for sale. Love and money couldn't buy it--isn't that so?"

Then had--come days in his own home, still with bandaged eyes, but with
the bandages removed for increasing hours every day; yet no one at all
in the town knowing the truth except the Mayor, Halliday the lawyer, and
one or two others who kept the faith until Ingolby gave them the word to
speak. Then had come the Mayor's visit to Montreal, the great meeting,
the fire at Manitou, and now Ingolby on the way to his tryst with Fleda.
They had met twice only since he had left Gabriel Druse's house, and
on the last occasion they had looked each other full in the eyes, and
Ingolby had said to her in the moment they had had alone:

"I'm going to get back, but I can't do it without you."

To this her reply had been, "I hope it's not so bad as that," and she
had looked provokingly in his eyes. Now she knew beyond peradventure
that he cared for her, and she was almost provoked at herself that when
he was in such danger of losing his sight for ever she had caught his
head to her breast in the passion of the moment. Many a time when he had
been asleep, with gentle fingers she had caressed his hands, his head,
his face; but that did not count, because he did not know. He did,
however, know of that moment when her passionate heart broke over him in
tenderness; and she tried to make him think, by things said since, that
it was only pity for his sufferings which made her do it.

Ingolby thought of all these things, but in a spirit of understanding,
as he went to his tryst with her at sunset on the day when Lebanon and
Manitou were reconciled.

.........................

He met her walking among the trees, very near the place where they
had had their first long talk, months before, when Jethro Fawe was a
prisoner in the Hut in the Woods. Then it was warm, singing Summer;
now, beneath the feet the red and brown leaves rustled, the trees were
stretching up gaunt arms to the Winter, the woods were no longer vocal,
and