ge--this man who mended the boats, this young man so live that
thoughts of life could change him as a sculptor can change his clay--dear
little Worth who was happily building a raft, the beautiful dog lying
there drawing restoration from the breath of the water--"But it doesn't
look as though it needed 'saving,'" said Katie.

He shook his head. "You're looking at the framework. Her eyes that day
brought word from the inside. To one knowing--"

He broke off, looking at her as though seeing her from a new angle.

He thought it aloud. "You've walked sunny paths, haven't you? You never
had your soul twisted. Life never tried to wring you out of shape. And
yet--oh there's quite a yet," he finished more lightly.

"But you were telling me of Ann," Katie felt she must say.

"Yes, and when I've finished telling you, you'll go back to your sunny
paths, won't you? Please don't hurry me. I can tell it better if I think
I'm not being hurried."

She smiled openly. "I am in no hurry." There was a sunny rim trying all
the while to pierce the somber thing which drew them together. Little
rays from the sunny paths would dart daringly in to the dark place from
which Ann rose.

It made him wonder how far she of the sunny paths could penetrate an
unlighted country. He looked at her--peered at her, fairly--trying to
decide. But he could not decide. Katie baffled him on that.

"I wonder," he voiced it, "where it's going to lead you? I wonder if
you're prepared to go where it may lead you? Have you thought of that?
Perhaps it's going to take you into a country too dark for you of the
sunny paths. She may be called back. You know we are called back to
countries where we have--established a residence. You might have to go
with her to settle a claim, or break a tie, or pull some one else out
that she might not be pulled back in. Then what? Perhaps you might feel
you needed a guide. If so,"--he went boldly to the edge of it, then
halted, and concluded with a boyishly bashful humor--"will you keep my
application on file?"

Katie was not going to miss her chance of finding out something. "I
should want a guide who knew the territory," she said.

"I qualify," he replied shortly, with a short, unmirthful laugh. "That is
one advantage of not having spent one's days on sunny paths." His voice
on that was neither bashful nor boyish.

"But you must have spent some of them on sunny paths," she urged, with
more feeling than she would have been a