Chapter XII. Love is Not All

Those days when we were waiting Craig's return we spent in the woods or on the mountain sides, 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 than any of us what is right to do, and he will do that, and no man can turn him from it; and,' he added, 'I should be sorry to try.'

Then my wrath rose, and I cried--

'It's a tremendous shame! They love each other. You are talking sentimental humbug and nonsense!'

'He must do the right,' said Nelson in his deep, quiet voice.

'Right! Nonsense!