ngs. A measure of peace came with the hope, and she
was presently gazing into the fire, dreaming more than thinking, and
feeling assured that the doctor would stop when he went by on the next
morning.

The boy saw how absorbed she was, and felt that there was no use in
waiting to speak to her, to tell her of the vague alarm which had seized
him. And then what was there to tell her or any one? He would only be
laughed at for fancying things, as he often had been before, and
remembering this, he crept off to his own cabin and went to bed. But he
could not go to sleep for a long time, and when he awoke at dawn the
formless dread was still dark in his mind, like some fearsome shape
behind an impenetrable curtain. And there it stayed all the day through,
never quite coming out into the light, but growing steadily larger and
darker and more terrible as the long heavy hours wore on. When--at
last--the dusk began to creep down the river, he grew so restless in his
nameless misery that he wandered into the forest, and there met the
doctor riding along the path on the way to his lonely cabin.

Paul's face brightened at the sight of the boy; he had always liked
him, and had been drawn to him before knowing of Ruth's existence. Still
the thought of her was now foremost in his mind as he looked at David.
We are all glad to see those who are near the one whom we love; we are
even eager to seek those whom we would otherwise avoid when they are
near our beloved from whom we are parted. This eagerness was in Paul
Colbert's face as he looked at the boy and asked with some hesitation if
he was in haste.

"If you are not," he said, "I should like to have a little talk with
you. Let's sit down on that fallen tree."

Dismounting, he led his horse along the path, with the boy following in
silence. They sat down side by side on the tree-trunk, the doctor
holding his horse by the bridle. There were new lines in his face which
did not belong to youth, and which had not been graven by his fierce
struggle with the Cold Plague. The boy noticed them and knew that they
had not been there when he had last seen the doctor's face. Its look of
gloom also had come back. That had lifted at the moment of meeting, but
it was too deep to go so suddenly, and it had now returned. He turned to
the boy uncertainly, for there had been no clear purpose in his speaking
to the lad. He had spoken on an irresistible impulse to learn something
of Ruth, blindly clutc