--but
it was Peter Nichols who restrained him. Peter Nicholaevitch feared
nothing, knew no restraint, lived only for the hour--for the moment.
Peter Nichols was a coward--or a gentleman--he was not quite certain
which.

When Peter entered the Cabin on the evening after the appointment of
Jesse Brown as foreman at the lumber camp, Beth could not help noticing
the clouds of worry that hung over Peter's brows.

"You're tired," she said. "Is anything wrong at the camp?"

But he only shook his head and sat down at the piano. And when she
questioned him again he evaded her and went on with the lesson. Music
always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. It was the
"Elegie" of Massenet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a
difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and
simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the French--like a
parrot--written them out phonetically, because the French words were
beautiful and the English, as written, abominable. And now she sang it
to him softly, as he had taught her, again and again, while he corrected
her phrasing, suggesting subtle meanings in his accompaniment which she
was not slow to comprehend.

"I didn't know that music could mean so much," she sighed as she sank
into a chair with a sense of failure, when the lesson was ended. "I
always thought that music just meant happiness. But it means sorrow
too."

"Not to those who hear you sing, Beth," said Peter with a smile, as he
lighted and smoked a corncob pipe, a new vice he had discovered at the
camp. Already the clouds were gone from his forehead.

"No! Do you really think that, Mr. Nichols?" she asked joyously.

She had never been persuaded to call him by his Christian name, though
Peter would have liked it. The "Mr." was the tribute of pupil to master,
born also of a subtler instinct of which Peter was aware.

"Yes," he replied generously, "you'll sing that very well in time----"

"When I've suffered?" she asked quickly.

He glanced up from the music in his hand, surprised at her intuition.

"I don't like to tell you so----"

"But I think I understand. Nobody can sing what she doesn't feel--what
she hasn't felt. Oh, I know," she broke off suddenly. "I can sing songs
of the woods--the water--the pretty things like you've been givin' me.
But the deep things--sorrow, pain, regret--like this--I'm not 'up' to
them."

Peter sat beside her, puffing contentedly.

"Don't worry," he mutte