that first day when I came up
here so choked with trouble I couldn't speak. You always brought me
good, David."

He saw as he watched her that some new and subtile charm had been added
to her personality. Was it motherhood that had given it to her, or the
long year of patient waiting and trusting; or had she passed through
depths of which he as yet knew nothing, to cause this evanescent breath
of pathos? He felt and knew it was all of these. What must she have
endured as she wrote that letter!

David fell easily and happily into his life on the mountain again--not
the English lord, but the vital, human being, the man in splendid
possession of himself and his impulses, holding sacred his rights as a
man, not to be coerced by custom or bound by any chains save those he
himself had forged to bind his heart before God.

For a time he would not allow himself to think of the future,
preferring to live thus with the world completely shut away. Buoyantly,
jubilantly, he tramped the hills and visited the homes where he had been
wont to bring help and often comforts, and found himself therein lauded
and idolized as few of his station ever are.

Again he was "Doctah Thryng," and the love that accompanied the title,
in the hearts of those mountain people, was regal. He enjoyed his little
farm, and the gathering of his first "crap," counting his bundles of
fodder and his bushels of corn. Sometimes he rode with Cassandra,
visiting the old haunts; at such times David insisted that the boy be
left with the grandmother or that Martha should come up to mind him,
that he might have his wife free and quite to himself as in their first
days.

But all this time, although silent about it, Cassandra kept in her heart
the thought of David's real state. She felt he was playing a part to
bring her joy, and was grateful, but she knew he must return to his own
world and live his own life. Therefore she existed in a state of
breathless suspense, to enjoy these moments to the fullest,--not to miss
or mar an instant of the blessed time while it lasted.

The days were flying--flying--so rapidly she dared not think, and here
was splendid October trailing her wonderful draperies over the hills
like a lavish princess. When would David speak? But perhaps he was
waiting for her to speak first? If so, how long ought she to remain
silent? Often he caught the wistful look in her eyes, and half divined
the meaning.

One day when they had wandered up