to get his
small amount of baggage.

The girl was troubled, also, without knowing just why, and she watched
his departure with an unhappy feeling that somehow the changes which the
year had made in both their lives had raised a misty barrier between
them--intangible, but not easily to be swept away. Furthermore, young as
she was, she intuitively sensed that hers was the necessity of
reconstructing their friendship on a new foundation, because she was a
woman. The man could not do it.

Meanwhile Donald performed his downward journey with none of the
lightness of heart which makes a long walk a pleasure, rather than a
task. Going down the wooded descent, where the dew still lay wet beneath
the heaviest thickets, was not so bad; but, when he had obtained his
grip and gun, and started on the back trail, his discomforts commenced.
As the main street of the little village changed its character, first to
a road and then a cart path through the fields, it grew deep with dust,
and, although no air stirred, it seemed to rise, as water does by
capillary attraction, until his clothing was saturated and his mouth and
nose overlaid with a film of it. Overhead the sky burned, and from the
brown fields, which stretched to the wooded base of the mountain, heat
waves rose as though the dry earth were panting with visible breath. An
insect chirped half-heartedly in the grass, and then left off as though
the effort were too great, and a small striped snake leisurely wove a
sinuous path through the dust ahead of him, and vanished with a faint
hiss.

It was better when he struck the woods, for there was shade; but the air
was more sultry and the added exertion of climbing started the
perspiration and turned the coating of dust to sticky grime. Still the
breeze delayed, and the fragrant odors of the woods were cloying. His
luggage grew heavier and yet more heavy; his arm and back began to ache
painfully.

When physical discomfort is accompanied by morose introspection, the
result is certain to be unpleasant, and Donald's thoughts were in dismal
grays and browns, which ill-matched the radiant colors of external
nature.

Certainly Smiles was not to blame, he thought, as he trudged up and up.
The fact still remained that they lived on utterly different planes, and
that he had not the slightest idea of falling in love with her, or, even
mentally, violating his pledge to Marion. Pshaw, she was nothing but a
child! It was foolish, absurdly