s it? What had occurred to
change the summer sunlight to drearest gray?

CHAPTER VII

Late August hung heavily over Quinton. The city folks, who counted their
year's playtime by two weeks' vacation, had come and gone, in relays.
The artists, never tiring of the changing charms of this new-found
beauty-spot, gave no heed to the passing season. Only cold, and acute
bodily suffering could attract their attention. Good, poor, and
indifferent revelled in the inspiration-haunted Hills and magnificent
sweep of shore.

The natives counted their gains with bated breath and dreamed visions of
future summers that made them dizzy.

Poor Susan Jane was the only woman, apparently, upon the mainland, who
had swung at anchor through all the changed conditions. Susan, who once
had been the ruling spirit of the village and Station! Susan, whose
sharp tongue and all-seeing eye had governed her kind! Susan had been
obliged to gather such bits of driftwood as had floated to her chair,
during the history-making season,--and draw such pleasure from it as
she could. The strain had worn upon the paralyzed body. The active mind
had stretched and stretched for material until the helpless frame
weakened. The sharp tongue was two-edged now, and gossip that reached
Susan Jane assumed the blackest color. Her searching eyes saw through
everything, and gripped all secrets.

David's songs, as he mounted the winding stairs, took on a soberer
strain. Sometimes he omitted, even at the top, his hilarious outburst to
the "lobster pots;" and his sigh and laugh combination was an hourly
occurrence.

Janet noticed it all. She was alive to the atmospheric chill of the
village, though in no wise understanding it. She was troubled and
fretted by many things, but she went her way. The money she had earned
by posing she dealt out in miserly fashion to Susan Jane; while at the
same time she assumed many household cares to ease David, whom she
loved.

There was no more money coming to her now, for after the scene in the
hut upon the Hills Thornly had gone away for a week, and upon his return
he had told Janet he would send her a message when again he needed her.
The man's tone had been most kindly, but it seemed a rebuff from which
the girl had not been able to recover. Once or twice she had stolen to
the hut, when she was sure the master was away; always the key was in
its hiding place. Softly she had gone in and stood in the sacred room.
The same p