stream, and
all her veins were warmed through and through with the sunlight, the
apparition of her father seemed like a dream. She had seen him thus once
in life, and supposed him a spirit. She was ready to suppose what she
had now seen to be a repetition of that last meeting, coming before she
was well roused from her sleep. She took comfort because her pulses ran
full and quiet once more. She thought of her love to Bart, and was
content. As to all that Bart had said--ah well! something she had
gathered from it, which was a seed in her mind, lay quiet now.

At length Toyner found strength to walk feebly, and sat down on the
doorstep, where he could see Ann. It was his first conscious look upon
this remote autumn bower, and he never forgot its joy. The eyes of men
who have just arisen from the dim region that lies near death are often
curiously full of unreasoning pleasure. Within himself Toyner called the
place the Garden of Eden.

"If only I had not brought you here!" said Ann. "If only I had not left
the canoe untied!"

For answer Bart looked around upon the trees and flowers and upon her
with happy eyes that had no hint of past or future in them. Something of
the secret of all peace--the _Eternal Now_--remained with him as long
as the weakness of this injury remained.

"Don't fret, Ann" (with a smile).

"I'm afraid for you; you look awful ill, and ought to have a doctor."

He had it in his mind to tell her that he was all right and desired only
what he had; but, in the dreamy reflective mood that still held him,
what he said was:

"If all the trouble in earth and heaven and hell were put together, Ann,
it would be just like clouds passing before the sun of joy. The clouds
are never at an end, but each one passes and melts away. Ann! sorrow and
joy are like the clouds and the sun."

It is never destined that man should remain long in Eden. About noon
that day Ann heard a shout from the direction of the lake outside among
the dead trees; the shout was repeated yet nearer, and in a minute or
two she recognised the voice and heard the sound of oars splashing up
the narrow channel made by the running creek. The thought of this
deliverance had not occurred to her; yet when she recognised the voice
it seemed to her natural enough that David Brown should have divined
where his canoe might have been brought. She stood waiting while his
boat came up the creek. The young athlete sprang from it, question and
reproach