e was merely the threatening hush before some
elemental fury. This serene, indifferent beauty was hateful to him in
that moment, the Promethean rock to which circumstance had chained him
to suffer. It needed only as a capsheaf the gleam of incredulous
dismay which should appear in his wife's eyes when she looked first
upon the mutilated tissue, the varying scars and cicatrices, the
twisted mask that would be revealed to her as the face of her
husband.

This test was at hand. He reassured himself, as he had vainly
reassured himself before, by every resource his mind and courage could
muster, and still he was afraid. He saw nothing ahead but a black void
in which there was neither love nor companionship nor friendly hands
and faces, nothing but a deep gloom in which he should wander
alone,--not because he wished to, but because he must.

He turned with a sudden resolution, crossed the low rocky point and
went down to the flat. He passed under the trestle which carried the
chute. The path to the house turned sharply around a clump of alder.
He rounded these leafy trees and came upon Doris standing by a low
stump. She stood as she did the first time he saw her on the steamer,
in profile, only instead of the steamer rail her elbow rested on the
stump, and she stared, with her chin nestled in the palm of one hand,
at the gray, glacial stream instead of the uneasy heave of a winter
sea. And Hollister thought with a slow constriction gathering in his
breast that life was a thing of vain repetitions; he remembered so
vividly how he felt that day when he stood watching her by the rail,
thinking with a dull resentment that she would presently look at him
and turn away. And he was thinking that again.

Walking on soft leaf-mold he approached within twenty feet of her,
unheard. Then she lifted her head, looked about her.

"Bob!"

"Yes," he answered. He stopped. She was looking at him. She made an
imperative gesture, and when Hollister still stood like a man
transfixed, she came quickly to him, her eyes bright and eager, her
hands outstretched.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Are you glad to see me?" he countered. "_Do_ you see me?"

She shook her head.

"No, and probably I never shall," she said evenly. "But you're here,
and that's just as good. Things are still a blur. My eyes will never
be any better, I'm afraid."

Hollister drew her close to him. Her upturned lips sought his. Her
body