pressed against him with a pleasant warmth, a confident yielding.
They stood silent a few seconds, Doris leaning against him
contentedly, Hollister struggling with the flood of mingled sensations
that swept through him on the heels of this vast relief.

"How your heart thumps," Doris laughed softly. "One would think you
were a lover meeting his mistress clandestinely for the first time."

"You surprised me," Hollister took refuge behind a white lie. He would
not afflict her with that miasma of doubts and fears which had
sickened him. "I didn't expect you till to-morrow afternoon."

"I got tired of staying in town," she said. "There was no use. I
wasn't getting any better, and I got so I didn't care. I began to feel
that it was better to be here with you blind, than alone in town with
that tantalizing half-sight of everything. I suppose the plain truth
is that I got fearfully lonesome. Then you wrote me that letter, and
in it you talked about such intimately personal things that I couldn't
let Mrs. Moore read it to me. And I heard about this big fire you had
here. So I decided to come home and let my eyes take care of
themselves. I went to see another oculist or two. They can't tell
whether my sight will improve or not. It may go again altogether. And
nothing much can be done. I have to take it as it comes. So I planned
to come home on the steamer to-morrow. You got my letter, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, I happened to get a chance to come as far as the Redondas on a
boat belonging to some people I knew on Stuart Island. I got a launch
there to bring me up the Inlet, and Chief Aleck brought us up the
river in the war canoe. My, it's good to be with you again."

"Amen," Hollister said. There was a fervent quality in his tone.

They found a log and sat down on it and talked. Hollister told her of
the fire. And when he saw that she had no knowledge of what tragedy
had stalked with bloody footprints across the Big Bend, he put off
telling her. Presently she would ask about Myra, and he would have to
tell her. But in that hour he did not wish to see her grow sad. He was
jealous of anything that would inflict pain on her. He wanted to
shield her from all griefs and hurts.

"Come back to the house," Doris said at last. "Baby's fretting a
little. The trip in a small boat rather upset him. I don't like to
leave him too long."

But Robert junior was peacefully asleep in his crib when they reached
the house. After a look