ttle late for
dinner."

"But, John, it is quite twelve miles, and you will have to carry a
gun--and your arm--"

John laughed happy laughter. "That was so like Aunt Ann!"

"Was it?--and now you will say 'yes, yes, you are quite right,' and walk
away and do just as you meant to do, like Uncle Jim."

"I may, but I will not walk further than Grey Pine." The air had
cleared--he had done some good!

"Good-night," he said, "it is late."

"Don't go too far, John. I shall read a while. This book is really so
interesting. We will talk about it."

"Good-night, once more."

The woman he left in the hall laid her book aside. Her unreasonable
vexation had gone, defeated by the quiet statement of his simply
confessed unhappiness. She looked about the hall and recalled their youth
and the love of which she still felt sure. The manliness of his ways
appealed to her sense of the value of character. Why she had been so
coldly difficult of approach she did not know. What woman can define that
defensive instinct? "He shall ask me again, and I--ah, Heaven!--I love
him." A wild passionate longing shook her as she rose to her feet.

At early morning John wandered away through the woods feeling the joyful
relief from the hot air of cities. After his visit to the mills and the
iron-mines, he struck across a somewhat unfamiliar country, found few
birds, and the blackened ravage of an old forest fire. He returned to the
well-known river-bank below the garden and the pines, and instead of
going to Grey Pine as he had meant to do went on as far as the cabin,
failing to get any more birds. He had walked some fourteen miles, and was
reminded by a distinct sense of fatigue that the body had not yet
regained its former vigour.

It was about five of the warm September day when he came to the old
log-house. Smiling as he recalled the memories of his childhood, he went
into the cabin and found its shelter pleasant and the cooling air of
evening grateful. He took off his game bag, laid it on the floor, set his
gun against the wall, and glad of a rest sat down. Having enjoyed his
first smoke of the day, he let his head drop on the floor, and by no
means intending it fell asleep.

Leila too was in a happier mood, and sure of not meeting John set out to
walk through the forest. After a pleasant loitering stroll she stopped at
the cabin door, and as she glanced in saw John Penhallow asleep. She
leaned against the door post and considered the moti