nants of pale yellow foliage, the bare branches of other hardwoods, and the deep rust of the underbrush were the only tangible proofs of the season. Everything else was gold and sapphire.
As he neared the boat-slip Keble saw that Louise had set up a deck chair in a sunny patch before the cabin, and had installed Dare in it. It was his first glimpse of Dare in several weeks and he was shocked at the wasted face that appeared above the rugs. For the first time he had some inkling of what the other man had been through, and a wave of compassion and affection surged through him.
Louise was sitting at Dare's side, and they were talking quietly, intimately. Although there was almost a life and death contrast between the two, Keble was no longer blind to the fact that his wife had worn herself to a dangerous margin, and while he could approve of her act, in the sense in which Aunt Denise approved of it, he could not, like Aunt Denise, look on unmoved. Something in the languor of the scene, something in the intimacy which seemed to unite the two, aroused a throbbing ache within him. Like Miriam he had felt futile in the face of this struggle, and now he almost envied Dare the suffering that had opened to him a secret garden. He paid blind tribute to whatever force in Dare,—a force transcending mere personality,—awakened in Louise a spirit that he had never been able to evoke. "I blunder and obtain forgiveness," he reflected, "while Dare is right, and pays terrific penalties."
