in June, and a rich, thick amber light floated
through the glades of the forest. Majestic white clouds sailed in the
deep blue sky. The sun shone hot down into the glades. Under the pines
and maples there was a cool sweet shade. Wild flowers bloomed. A
fragrance of the woods came on the gentle breeze. The leaves rustled.
The melancholy song of a hermit thrush pierced the stillness. A crow
cawed from a high oak. The murmur of shallow water running over rocks
came faintly to Lane's ears.

Lane surrendered utterly to the sheer primitive exultation of life.
The supreme ecstasy of that hour could never have been experienced but
for the long hopeless months which had preceded it. For a long time he
lay there in a transport of the senses, without thinking. As soon as
thought regained dominance over his feelings there came a subtle
change in his reaction to this situation.

He had forgotten much. He had lived in a dream. He had unconsciously
grown well. He had been strangely, unbelievably happy. Why? Mel Iden
had nursed him, loved him, inspired him back to health. Her very
presence near him, even unseen, had been a profound happiness. He made
the astonishing discovery that for months he had thought of little
else besides his wife. He had lived a lonely life, in his room, and in
the open, but all of it had been dominated by his dreams and fancies
and emotions about her. He had roused from his last illness with the
past apparently dead. There was no future. So he lived in the moment,
the hour. While he lay awake in the silence of night, or toiled over
his wood pile, or wandered by the brook under the trees, his dreamy
thoughts centered about her. And now the truth burst upon him. His
love for her had been stronger than his ruined health and blasted
life, stronger than misfortune, stronger than death. It had made him
well. He had not now to face death, but life. And the revelation
brought on shuddering dread.

Lane lingered in the woods until late afternoon. Then he felt forced
to return to the cottage. The look of the whole world seemed changed.
All was actual, vivid, striking. Mel's loveliness burst upon him as
new and strange and terrible as the fact of his recovery. He had
hidden his secret from her. He had been like a brother, kind,
thoughtful, gay at times, always helpful. But he had remained aloof.
He had basked in the sunshine of her presence, dreamily reveling in
the consciousness of what she was to him. That hour had