ing on her rubber-tipped cane, walked to the door.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XIII

HE came every day; and every day, at sundown, she sat sewing by the
window behind her heliotrope and mignonette waiting.

Sometimes he caught perch and dace and chub, and she accepted half, never
more. Sometimes he caught nothing; and then her clear, humorous eyes
bantered him, and sometimes she even rallied him. For it had come to pass
in these sunset moments that she was learning to permit herself a
friendliness and a confidence for him which was very pleasant to her
while it lasted, but, after he had gone, left her with soft lips drooping
and gaze remote.

Because matters with her, with them both, she feared, were not tending
in the right direction. It was not well for her to see him every
day--well enough for him, perhaps, but not for her.

Some day--some sunset evening, with the West flecked gold and the zenith
stained with pink, and the pink-throated bird singing of Paradise, and
the brook talking in golden tones to its pebbles--some such moment at the
end of day she would end all of their days for them both--all of their
days for all time.

But not just yet; she had been silent so long, waiting, hoping, trusting,
biding her time, that to her his voice and her own at eventide was a
happiness yet too new to destroy.

That evening, as he stood at her window, the barrier of mignonette
fragrant between them, he said rather abruptly:

"Are you ill?"

"No," she said startled.

"Oh, I am relieved."

"Why did you ask?"

"Because every Tuesday I have seen the doctor from Moss Centre come in
here."

In flushed silence she turned to her table and, folding her hands, gazed
steadily at nothing.

Marque looked at her, then looked away. The big, handsome young physician
from Moss Centre had been worrying him for a long while now, but he
repeated, half to himself: "I am very much relieved. I was becoming a
little anxious--he came so regularly."

"He is a friend," she said, not looking at him.

He forced a smile. "Well, then, there is no reason for me to worry about
you."

"There never was any reason--was there?"

"No, no reason."

"You don't say it cheerfully, Mr. Marque. You speak as though it might
have been a pleasure for you to worry over my general health and
welfare."

"I think of little else," he said.

There was a silence. Between them, along the barrier of heliotrope and
mignonette, the litt