ith its
delicate, pearly pink blossoms, filled the dark corners. Masses of the
plumed white ash shook feathery tassels along the walls, making the air
sweet with their fragrance. Ah, how clean and fresh everything was! All
his disorder was set to rights, and fresh linen was on his bed in his
canvas room.

Even his table was laid with his small store of dishes, and food placed
upon it, still covered in the basket he was now so accustomed to see.
Sweet and dainty it all was. He had only to light the fat pine sticks
laid beneath the kettle swung above and make his tea, and his meal was
ready. Had she divined he would not stop at the Fall Place this time,
when in the past it had been his custom to do so? Ah, she knew; for is
not the little winged god a wonderful teacher?

Thryng was humbled in the very dust and ashes of repentance as he sat
down to his late dinner. The fragrance in the room, all he ate,
everything he touched, filled his senses with her; and he--he had only
brought her sorrow. He had come into her life but to bruise her spirit
and leave her sad at heart with a deep sadness he dared not and could
not alleviate. He lifted a pale purple orchid she had placed in a
tumbler at his hand and examined it. Evidently she had thought this the
choicest of all the woodland treasures she had brought him, and had
placed it there, a sweet message. What should he do? Ah, what could he
do? He must not see her yet--at least not until to-morrow.

Later, David brought in his specimens and occupied himself with his
microscope. He had begun a careful study of certain destructive things.
Even here in the wild he found them, evil and unwholesome, clinging to
the well and strong, slowly but surely sapping the vitality of those who
gave them life. Every evil, he thought, must, in the economy of nature,
have its antidote. So, with the ardor of the scientist, he divided with
care the nasty, pasty growth he had found and prepared his plates.
Systematically he made drawings and notes as he studied the magnified
atoms beneath his powerful lens, and while he sat absorbed in his work,
Hoyle's childish voice piped at him from the doorway.

"Howdy, Doctah Thryng."

"Why, hello! Howdy!" said David, without looking up from his work.

"What you got in that thar gol' machine? Kin I look, too?"

"What have I got? Why--I've got a bit of the devil in here."

"Whar'd you git him? Huh?"

"Oh, I found him along the road between here and the sta