he was lost, weathered the gale."

"Isn't that good, gripping stuff? I've caught the sense of it, and when
I get to thinking--well, of such as lie in many of these little rooms,
I'm glad--you're--setting sail!"

"Thank you, Doctor Cameron. I am setting sail! I thought I was before--I
see the difference now. And to-morrow----"

"And to-morrow--where are you going--to-morrow?"

Cameron was ill at ease.

"To a little hotel--I will give you the address in the morning. It is
from there that I will set sail."

CHAPTER XXIII

"_No one can travel that road for you, you must travel it for
yourself._"

David Martin came into the living room of Ridge House bringing, as it
seemed, the Spring with him. He left the door open and sat down. He was
in rough clothes; he was brown and rugged. He was building, with his own
hands, much of the cabin at Blowing Rock. He had never been more content
in his life. He often paused, as he was now doing, and thought of it.

The hard winter's work was over and Martin felt the spring in his blood
as he had not felt it in many a year.

Things were going to suit him--and they had had a way of eluding him in
the past. Perhaps, he thought, because he had always wanted them just
his way.

Somewhere, above stairs, Doris was singing, and Nancy from another part
of the house was calling out little joyous remarks.

"Two telegrams in one day, Aunt Doris. Such riches!"

Doris paused in her song long enough to reply:

"Joan may come any day, Nan, dear. It is so like her to act, once she
decides."

Martin, sitting by the hearth, reflected upon the injustice of Prodigal
Sons and Daughters--but he smiled.

"They don't deserve it--but it's damnably true that they get it," he
mused, irrelevantly.

"Joan's room is a dream, Nan, come and see it!" called Doris, and Nancy
could be heard running and laughing to inspect the Prodigal's quarters.

"It looks divine!" she ejaculated. "Push that pink dogwood back a
little, Aunt Dorrie--make it like a frame around the mirror for the
dear's face."

"How's that, Nan?"

"Exactly--right. Aunt Dorrie?"

"Yes, my dear girl."

"I have the dearest plan--I feel that Ken would love it, but I hate to
be the one to propose it."

From his armchair Martin smiled more broadly.

"Perhaps I can do it for you, Nan." Doris spoke abstractedly--she was,
apparently, giving more thought to the decorations for the returning
wanderer than to the plans of the good