here's a chance Garry is having it, and you've got to keep your
strength.... I wish this mist would clear; Hooper telephoned to Pride's
for the weather bulletin, but it is not encouraging."

They walked about for an hour and finally returned from the wet woodland
paths to the bridge, leaning on the stone parapet together.

A swollen brook roared under the arches, carrying on its amber
wave-crests tufts of green grass and young leaves and buds which the
promise of summer had tenderly unfolded to the mercy of a ruthless
flood.

"Like those young lives that go out too early," murmured Constance. "See
that little wind-flower, Jim, uprooted, drowning--and that dead thing
tumbling about half under water--"

Wayward laid a firm hand across hers.

"I don't mean to be morbid," she said with a pathetic upward glance,
"but, Jim, it is too awful to hear him fighting for just--just a chance
to breathe a little--"

"I think he's going to get well," said Wayward.

"Jim! Why do you think it? Has any--"

"No.... I just think it."

"Is there any reason--"

"None--except you."

His voice within the last month or two had almost entirely lost its
indistinct and husky undertone; the clear resonant quality, which had
always thrilled her a little as a young girl, seemed to be returning;
and now she felt, faintly, the old response awaking within her.

"It is very sweet of you to believe he'll live because I love him," she
said gently.

Wayward drew his hand from hers and, folding his arms, leaned on the
parapet inspecting the turbid water through his spectacles.

"There are no fights too desperate to be won," he said. "The thing to do
is to finish--still fighting!"

"Jim?"

"Yes."

This time her hand sought his, drew it toward her, and covered it with
both of hers.

"Jim," she said tremulously, "there is something--I am horribly
afraid--that--perhaps Garry is not fighting."

"Why?" he asked bluntly.

"There was an--an attachment--"

"A what?"

"An unfortunate affair; he was very deeply in love--"

"Not ridiculously, I hope!"

"I don't know what you mean.... He cared more than I have believed
possible; I saw him in New York on his way here and, Jim, he must have
known then, for he looked like death--"

"You mean he was in love with that Cardross girl?"

"Oh, yes, yes!... I do not understand the affair; but I tell you, Jim,
the strangest part was that the girl loved him! If ever a woman was in
love with a man,