e's good in
him, and she'll bring it out."

"Unfortunately, it's too late to think of Claude's good when he's
pledged to some one else."

"Would you make him marry her?"

"I'd make him do his duty."

She gave him another of those faint smiles of which the real meaning
baffled him. "I wouldn't lay too much stress on that, if I were you. To
marry for the sake of doing one's duty is"--she faltered an instant, but
recovered herself--"is as likely as not to defeat its own ends."

He was afraid to pursue the topic lest she should speak more plainly. On
arriving home he was glad to see her go to her room and shut the door.
It grieved him to think that she might be brooding in silence, but even
that was better than speech. As Uncle Sim and Cousin Amy Dawes were
coming to Sunday-night supper, the evening would be safe; and to avoid
being face to face with her in the meanwhile he went out again.

* * * * *

Having passed an hour in his office, he strolled up into the wood above
the village, his refuge from boyhood onward in any hour of trouble.
There was space here, and air, and solitude. It was a diversion that was
almost a form of consolation to be in touch with the wood's teeming
life. Moreover, the trees, with their stately aloofness from mortal
cares, their strifelessness and strength, shed on him a kind of
benediction. From long association, from days of bird's-nesting in
spring, and camping in summer, and nutting in autumn, and snow-shoeing
in winter, he knew them almost as individual personalities--the great
white oaks, the paper birches, the white pines with knots that were
masses of dry resin, the Canada balsams with odorous boughs, the
sugar-maples, the silver maples, the beeches, the junipers, the
hemlocks, the hackmatacks, with the low-growing hickories, witch-hazels,
and slippery-elms. Their green was the green of early May--yellow-green,
red-green, bronze-green, brown-green, but nowhere as yet the full, rich
hue of summer. Here and there a choke-cherry in full bloom swayed and
shivered like a wraith. In shady places the ferns were unfolding in
company with Solomon's-seal, wake-robin, the lady's-slipper, and the
painted trillium. There was an abundance of yellow--cinquefoil,
crowfoot, ragwort, bellwort, and shy patches of gold-colored violets.

In the sloping outskirts of the wood he stood still and breathed deeply,
a portion of his cares and difficulties slipping from his sho