y happy. He had paid a debt, God knew. Shocked by the Maclin
exposure, he had been roused to decency and purpose as he had never
been before. He felt now that he had redeemed the past, and
Mary-Clare's gentleness and kindness meant but one thing to Rivers.
And he wanted that thing. His own partial regeneration had been
evolved through hours of remorse and contrition. Alone, under strange
skies and during long, danger-filled nights, he had caught a glimpse
of his poor, shivering soul, and it had brought him low in fear, then
high in hope.

"Perhaps, if I pay and pay"--he had pleaded with the sad thing--"I can
win out yet!"

And sitting in the warm, sunny room of the yellow house, Larry began
to believe he had! It was always so easy for him to see one small
spot.

At the first he was a hero, and the Forest paid homage to him;
listened at his shrine and fed his reviving ego. But heroes cloy the
taste, in time, and the most thrilling tales wax dull when they are
worn to shreds. More and more Larry grew to depend upon Mary-Clare and
Noreen for company and upon Jan-an for a never-failing listener to his
tales.

Noreen, just now, puzzled Mary-Clare. The child's old aversion to her
father seemed to have passed utterly from her thought. She was devoted
to him; touched his maimed body reverently, and wooed him from the sad
moments that presently began to overpower him.

She assumed an old and protecting manner toward him that would have
been amusing had it not been so tragically pathetic.

Every afternoon Larry took a nap, sitting in an old kitchen rocker.
Poised on the arm of the chair, her father's head upon her tiny
shoulder, Noreen sang him to sleep.

"You're my baby, daddy-linkum, and I'm your motherly. Come, shut your
eyes, and lall a leep!"

And Larry would sleep, often to awake with an unwholesome merriment
that frightened Mary-Clare.

One late summer afternoon she was sitting with him by the open door.
The beautiful hills opposite were still rich with flowers and green
bushes. Suddenly Larry said:

"It's great, this being home!"

"I'm glad home was here for you to come to, Larry." Mary-Clare felt
her heart beat quicker--not with love, but the growing fear.

"Are you, honest?"

"Yes, Larry. Honest."

"I wonder." It was the old voice now. "When I lay out there, and
crawled along----"

"Please, Larry, we have agreed not to talk of that!"

"Yes, I know, but even then, while I was crawling, I got to thi