denly he became grave. "I hear you call me in
the night sometimes, and I start up and say 'Yes, Di!' out of my sleep.
It's a queer hallucination. I've got you on the brain, certainly."

"It seems to vex you--certainly," she said, opening the book that lay in
her lap, "and your eyes trouble me to-day. They've got a look that used
to be in them, Flood, before--before you promised; and another look
I don't understand and don't like. I suppose it's always so. The real
business of life is trying to understand each other."

"You have wonderful thoughts for one that's had so little chance," he
said. "That's because you're a genius, I suppose. Teaching can't give
that sort of thing--the insight."

"What is the matter, Flood?" she asked suddenly again, her breast
heaving, her delicate, rounded fingers interlacing. "I heard a man say
once that you were 'as deep as the sea.' He did not mean it kindly, but
I do. You are in trouble, and I want to share it if I can. Where were
you going when you came across me here?"

"To see old Busby, the quack-doctor up there," he answered, nodding
towards a shrubbed and wooded hillock behind them.

"Old Busby!" she rejoined in amazement. "What do you want with him--not
medicine of that old quack, that dreadful man?"

"He cures people sometimes. A good many out here owe him more than
they'll ever pay him."

"Is he as rich an old miser as they say?"

"He doesn't look rich, does he?" was the enigmatical answer.

"Does any one know his real history? He didn't come from nowhere. He
must have had friends once. Some one must once have cared for him,
though he seems such a monster now."

"Yet he cures people sometimes," he rejoined abstractedly. "Probably
there's some good underneath. I'm going to try and see."

"What is it. What is your business with him? Won't you tell me? Is it so
secret?"

"I want him to help me in a case I've got in hand. A client of mine is
in trouble--you mustn't ask about it; and he can help, I think--I think
so." He got to his feet. "I must be going, Di," he added. Suddenly a
flush swept over his face, and he reached out and took both her hands.
"Oh, you are a million times too good for me!" he said. "But if all goes
well, I'll do my best to make you forget it."

"Wait--wait one moment," she answered. "Before you go, I want you to
hear what I've been reading over and over to myself just now. It is from
a book I got from Quebec, called 'When Time Shall Pass'. It is