o him courteously. Pennington smiled at him, and stayed
where he was. Marjorie, Mrs. O'Mara said, seemed to cling to him, and
his presence did her good. And--she broke it as gently as she
could--though the patient was on the road to getting well now, she was
disturbed by his coming in and out. She seemed afraid of him.

Francis took it very quietly. After that he only came to the bedroom
door to ask, and stepped as softly as he could, so that she would not
even know he had been there. And time went on, and she got better, and
presently could be dressed in soft, loose, fluffy things, and lie out
on the veranda during the warmest part of the day, and see people for a
little while each. It was about this time that Francis went to sleep
at the bunk-house.

"Why doesn't Francis ever come to see me?" she asked finally. "There
are a great many things I want to know about."

Pennington, whom she had asked, told her gently.

"We thought--the physician thought--that he upset you a little when you
were beginning to be better. He is staying away on purpose. Would you
like to see him?"

"Yes, I think I would," she said. "Can Peggy come talk to me?"

Peggy could, of course. She came dashing up, from some sylvan nook
where she had been secluded, presumably with Logan, fell on Marjorie
with hearty good-will and many kisses, and demanded to know what she
could do.

"I--I want to see Francis and talk to him about a lot of things," said
Marjorie, "and I thought perhaps if you'd get me a mirror and a little
bit of powder, and----"

"Say no more!" said Peggy. "I know what you want as well as if you'd
told me all. I'll be out in a minute with everything in the world."

She returned with her arms full of toilet things, and for fifteen
minutes helped Marjorie look pretty. She finished by brushing out her
hair and arranging it loosely in curls, with a big ribbon securing it,
like Mary Pickford or one of her rivals. She touched Marjorie's face
with a little perfume to flush it, and draped her picturesquely against
the back of the long chair, with a silk shawl over her instead of the
steamer rug which Mrs. O'Mara, less artistic than utilitarian, had
provided.

"There," she said, "you look like a doll, or an angel, or anything else
out of a storybook. Now I'll get Francis."

CHAPTER XII

Marjorie waited, with a quietness which was only outward, for Francis.
She did not even know whether he would come; she had