s, or down in the canyon beside the stream that
danced down to meet the Black Rock river, I talking and sketching and
reading, and she listening and dreaming, with often a happy smile upon
her face. But there were moments when a cloud of shuddering fear would
sweep the smile away, and then I would talk of Craig till the smile came
back again.

But the woods and the mountains and the river were her best, her wisest,
friends during those days. How sweet the ministry of the woods to her!
The trees were in their new summer leaves, fresh and full of life. They
swayed and rustled above us, flinging their interlacing shadows upon
us, and their swaying and their rustling soothed and comforted like the
voice and touch of a mother. And the mountains, too, in all the glory of
their varying robes of blues and purples, stood calmly, solemnly about
us, uplifting our souls into regions of rest. The changing lights and
shadows flitted swiftly over their rugged fronts, but left them ever as
before in their steadfast majesty. 'God's in His heaven.' What would you
have? And ever the little river sang its cheerful courage, fearing not
the great mountains that threatened to bar its passage to the sea. Mrs.
Mavor heard the song and her courage rose.

'We too shall find our way,' she said, and I believed her.

But through these days I could not make her out, and I found myself
studying her as I might a new acquaintance. Years had fallen from her;
she was a girl again, full of young warm life. She was as sweet as
before, but there was a soft shyness over her, a half-shamed, half-frank
consciousness in her face, a glad light in her eyes that made her all
new to me. Her perfect trust in Craig was touching to see.

'He will tell me what to do,' she would say, till I began to realise how
impossible it would be for him to betray such trust, and be anything but
true to the best.

So much did I dread Craig's home-coming, that I sent for Graeme and
old man Nelson, who was more and more Graeme's trusted counsellor and
friend. They were both highly excited by the story I had to tell, for I
thought it best to tell them all; but I was not a little surprised
and disgusted that they did not see the matter in my light. In vain I
protested against the madness of allowing anything to send these two
from each other. Graeme summed up the discussion in his own emphatic
way, but with an earnestness in his words not usual with him.

'Craig will know better th