"I don't know," said Graham, with a short laugh. "None of
us know. But what we all want just now is music. Dorothy, will
you sing a little for us?"

So she sang "The Coulin," and "The Days o' the Kerry
Dancin'," and "The Hawthorn Tree," and "The Green Woods of
Truigha," and "Flowers o' the Forest," and "A la claire
Fontaine," until the twilight was filled with peace.

The boys came back to the school. The wheels of routine
began to turn again, slowly and with a little friction at
first, then smoothly and swiftly as if they had never stopped.
Summer reddened into autumn; autumn bronzed into fall. The
maples and poplars were bare. The oaks alone kept their
rusted crimson glory, and the cloaks of spruce and hemlock on
the shoulders of the hills grew dark with wintry foliage.
Keene's transitions of mood became more frequent and more
extreme. The gulf of isolation that divided him from us when
the black days came seemed wider and more unfathomable.
Dorothy and John Graham were thrown more constantly together.
Keene appeared to encourage their companionship. He watched
them curiously, sometimes, not as if he were jealous, but rather
as if he were interested in some delicate experiment. At other
times he would be singularly indifferent to everything, remote,
abstracted, forgetful.

Dorothy's birthday, which fell in mid-October, was kept as
a holiday. In the morning everyone had some little birthday
gift for her, except Keene. He had forgotten the birthday