was a day to set the blood stirring and rouse the
vigour of the strong, and Alton felt the effect of it as he lay
listening to the rhythmic humming of the saws. The sound spoke of
activity, and raising himself a trifle in his chair he glanced at his
partner with a faint sparkle in his eye.

"It's good to feel alive again," he said.

Seaforth's smile was somewhat forced, for he had reason for dreading
the moment when his comrade would take an interest in the affairs of
life again. There was something that Alton must know, and glancing at
his hollow face he shrank from telling him.

The struggle had been a long one, for fever had once more seized Alton
when he was apparently on the way to recovery, and there had been times
when it seemed to Seaforth that two angels kept the long night watches
with him beside his comrade's bed. One was terrible and shadowy, and
stooped lower and lower and above the scarcely breathing form; the
other bright and beautiful, an angel of tenderness and mercy, and if
Seaforth was fanciful there were excuses for him. His endurance had
been strained to the uttermost as day and night he kept his vigil,
while the humanity of the girl who watched with him had become
etherealized until her beauty was almost spiritual. The coldness had
gone out of it, and now and then it seemed to the worn-out man that a
faint reflection of a light that is not kindled in this world shone
through the pity in her eyes. That spark was all that had been
lacking, and Seaforth, who had doubted, bent his head in homage when it
came, for it appeared to him that in sloughing off her pride and
becoming wholly womanly the girl had reached out in her gentleness and
compassion towards the divine. When at last the turning had been
passed, and Alice Deringham went down with her father for a brief rest
to Vancouver, she took Seaforth's limitless respect and gratitude with
her, though it occurred to him that she had gone somewhat suddenly as
though anxious to escape from the ranch. They were, however, to return
that evening.

"I talked a good deal, Charley, when I was sick?" said Alton.

Seaforth smiled dryly. "There is no use in denying it, because you
did," he said.

Alton's face grew clouded. "I'd have bitten my tongue right through if
I'd known. There were one or two things I'd been through that would
come back to me, things one would sooner forget."

Seaforth appeared thoughtful, but evidently decided that fran