you don't clear out of
this village for the next six months--"

Claude was beside himself with exasperation. "But, good God, man, I've
come back to marry Rosie! Now don't you see?"

Jim stalked forward from the hothouse door, standing over the smaller,
slighter man with a tolerant kindliness which persisted in his sunny,
steely smile. "No, I don't see. You clear out. Take a friend's advice.
Whether you've come back to marry Rosie or whether you haven't won't
make a cent's worth of difference to old man Fay. Clear out, all the
same."

In his excitement Claude screamed, shrilly, "Like hell, I will!"

"Like hell, you'll have to. Mind you, Claude, I'm telling you as a
friend. And as for marrying Rosie--well, you can't."

Claude became aggressive. "If that's because you think you _can_--"

"Gee! Me! What do you know about that! It's all I can do to get her to
look at the same side of the road I'm on--so far. But if I can't, still
less can you, and for a very good reason."

"What reason?" Claude demanded, with his best attempt to be stern.

The other became solemn and dramatic. "The reason that--that she's
dead."

Claude jumped. "Dead! What in thunder are you talking about? She wasn't
dead this afternoon."

"Oh yes, she was, Claude--_that_ Rosie. She--she drowned herself. When I
dived in after her it was another Rosie altogether that I brought up. Do
you get me?"

Claude broke in with smothered objurgations, but Jim, feeling the value
of the vein he had started, persisted in going on with it. He did so not
bitterly or reproachfully, but with a playful, Celtic sadness in which a
misty blinking of the eyes struggled with the smile that continued to
hover on his lips.

"The Rosie you knew, Claude, was all limp and white as I held her in my
arms while Robbie Willert rowed us ashore. She was gone. The soul was
out of her. She was as much in heaven as if she'd been dead a week. Her
eyes were shut and her eyelashes wet, just as you might see the fringe
of a flower hung with dewdrops of a morning. And her mouth! You know the
kind of mouth she's got--a little open when she looks at you, as if
you'd taken her by surprise, like. Well, that's the way it was then--a
wee little bit open--as if she was going to speak--but more as if she
was going to cry--and her lips that white!--and not a beat to her heart
no matter how tight you held her! When Dr. Hill brought the breath into
her again it was a different Rosie that came bac