He was glad when the sun came and filled the valley, panoramic from the
farmhouse ridge, with a glory of light. Milk-white clouds capped the
western hills. Nearer, dotted peacefully with farms, red barns and
dark, straggling clumps of evergreen, the rolling valley stretched
unevenly among intersecting lines of trees. At the foot of a hill rose
the spire of the village church. To the south a crystal blaze of sun
showed water.

A world of lilac and dogwood and a few late apple blossoms clinging
bravely through the storm to sunshine. And the world held Joan with
shadows of the sun in her hair and eyes and shadows of the past in her
gowns.

Ah, truly, it was good to be alive!




CHAPTER VIII

JOAN

Thus, warm and fragrant, the summer came with Kenny in the house of Adam
Craig, drifting pleasantly he knew and cared not where; with Brian on the
road with Donald West.

And Joan? To her summer came with a new incomprehensible delight. Out
of the void a bright spirit had roved into her world, sweeping her, eager
and unresistant, into youth and life and laughter. He came from an