He sat down in front of her, clasping his knees about, as was his wont,
and exposing thereby not only the entire oatmeal sock, but a section of
leg nearly matching it in tint.

'Well, I am rather tired,' he said. 'I've lost my way, I guess.' And,
looking about him, he went on: 'Very peaceful things aren't they, the
woods. Trees are very peaceful things, pacifying things, I mean.'

Helen looked up at them. 'Yes, they are peaceful. I don't know that I
find them pacifying.'

His eyes came back to her and he considered her again for a moment
before he said, smiling gently, 'I've been crying too.'

In the little pause that followed this announcement they continued to
look at each other, and it was not so much that their eyes sounded the
other's eyes as that they deepened for each other and, without effort or
surprise, granted to each other the quiet avowal of complete sincerity.

'I'm very sorry that you are unhappy, too,' said Helen. She noticed now
that his eyes were jaded and that all his clear, terse little face was
softened and relaxed.

'Yes, I'm unhappy,' said Franklin. 'It's queer, isn't it, that we should
find each other like this. I'm glad I've found you: two unhappy people
are better together, I think, than alone. It eases things a little,
don't you think so?'

'Perhaps it does,' said Helen. 'That is, it does if one of them is so
kind and so pacifying as you are; you do remind me of the trees,' she
smiled.

'Ah, well, that's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed,' said Franklin,
looking about him at the limpid green. 'It makes me feel I'm not
intruding, to have you say that to me. It didn't follow, of course,
because I'm glad to find you that you would be glad I'd come. You don't
show it much, Miss Buchanan'--he was looking at her again--'your
crying.'

'I'm always afraid that I show it dreadfully. That's the worst of it, I
don't dare indulge in it often.'

'No, you don't show it much. You sometimes look as though you had been
crying when I'm sure you haven't--early in the morning, for instance.'

Helen could but smile again. 'You are very observant. You really noticed
that?'

'I don't know that I'm so very observant, Miss Buchanan, but I'm
interested in everybody, and I'm particularly interested in you, so that
of course I notice things like that. Now you aren't particularly
interested in me--though you are so kind--are you?' and again Mr. Kane
smiled his weary, gentle smile.

It seemed very natu