, and sufficient nourishment
(for she had neglected herself at Haig's, despite Jim's solicitude)
restored her physically to what she had been on the day of Haig's
accident. But she, too, had changed, and as subtly as the season.

"What's come over Marion?" asked Huntington of Claire one day, after
he had caught himself regarding her with the rapt interest of a
discoverer.

Claire looked at him pityingly. She knew, but she was not going to
tell him.

"Why?" she asked innocently.

"Well, I don't exactly know," he replied doubtfully. "She's prettier
than ever--but so are you. That isn't it. She's kind of--It's no use.
I don't know."

Claire laughed, and then became severe.

"That's because she's forgiven you," she said.

"No, it isn't!" he asseverated, not without embarrassment. "You can
see for yourself that she's different."

"Very well!" she retorted maliciously. "Perhaps if you'd done such a
noble thing as nursing Haig back to life you'd be different too."

"I'd see him in--"

"Shame!" she cried. "You wouldn't do anything of the kind. Your bark's
worse than your bite, sir. And besides, while I think of it, you
really must stop saying 'hell' and 'damn' so much. The habit's growing
on you."

Having no ready answer to that speech, he merely looked at her,
perhaps a little guiltily, then bent down and kissed her, and hurried
out of the house. He was, in truth, though he never would have had the
courage to acknowledge it, even to Claire, ashamed of himself, and
anxious too. His inflammable temper had rather out-flamed itself in
its last-recorded performance, and he had begun to suspect that it had
been responsible for some, though by no means all, of his troubles.
The killing of Haig's bull, he now realized, was a foolish and
indefensible act, which could be traced easily to him because of the
bull that was gored; and he must prepare to account to Haig for it.
And so, knowing that he would again be in the wrong, as in the affair
at the post-office, he was torn between accentuated bitterness toward
Haig and growing discontent with himself. He would never be afraid of
Haig, but he was becoming steadily more afraid of Marion. Whether it
was that he had really developed intuition, which told him of Marion's
spiritual growth, or that he was in constant dread lest she make some
new demand upon him in regard to Haig, he lived in much awe of her.
She had once spoken, on a memorable occasion, of making peace between