before I saw you coming and carried you into the shop. I thought you were not coming to, and you were so soaked with water that I had lifted you to bring you to the fire when you recovered.”

[44]“I hope Jerry got home,” she said thoughtfully. “It was my folly; I saw how black the clouds were, and I ought to have gone home.”

[44]

Trench stooped for more wood and fed the fire, the glow lighting up his face again. “Where were you?” he asked simply, and then “I beg your pardon—”

“I was up the trail,” she said quietly. “I stayed too long. It was beautiful; all the young things are budding. I dismounted to gather some wild honeysuckle—and it is gone!”

For the first time his eyes met hers with a glow of understanding. “Did you notice the turn above the river?” he asked, still feeding the fire.

She smiled reluctantly. “How white the cucumber is,” she answered, “and did you see the red tips of the maples? How glossy the new green leaves look!”

“There is a place there, where the old hickory fell, where you can see the orchard and that low meadow by the lane—” His face was almost boyish, eager for sympathy, awakened, changed.

“It is beautiful,” Diana replied, nodding, “and one hears the Bob White there.”

“Ah!” he breathed softly, “you noticed?”

Diana leaned her elbow on the worn arm of his chair and nestled her chin in her hand, watching him. After all, what manner of man was he?

The storm, still raging in all its fury, shook the house to its foundation; a deafening crash of thunder seemed to demolish all other sounds. She glanced covertly about the little room, seeking some explanation there.[45] A village shopkeeper who was by nature a poet and a mystic, and of whom men spoke as a politician—there was a paradox. Something like amusement touched the edge of her thought, but she tried for the first time to understand. The room was small and lined on two sides with rough bookshelves made of unstained pine, yet there was a picturesqueness in the medley of old books, grouped carelessly about them. There were a few old worn leather chairs and the lounge, a faded rug, a table littered with papers and pens around the shaded lamp, beside which lay his pipe. His dog, Shot, a yellow nondescript, lay across the threshold, nose between paws, 

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