flows."

Ann rose and ran out of the house. To be in the sunshine and among the
wild sunflowers was more to her just then than any wisdom. The wave of
pity that had gone over her soul had ebbed in a feeling of exhaustion.
Her body wanted warmth and heat. She felt that she wanted _only_ that.
After she had sat for an hour near the bank of the rippling stream, and
all her veins were warmed through and through with the sunlight, the
apparition of her father seemed like a dream. She had seen him thus once
in life, and supposed him a spirit. She was ready to suppose what she
had now seen to be a repetition of that last meeting, coming before she
was well roused from her sleep. She took comfort because her pulses ran
full and quiet once more. She thought of her love to Bart, and was
content. As to all that Bart had said--ah well! something she had
gathered from it, which was a seed in her mind, lay quiet now.

At length Toyner found strength to walk feebly, and sat down on the
doorstep, where he could see Ann. It was his first conscious look upon
this remote autumn bower, and he never forgot its joy. The eyes of men
who have just arisen from the dim region that lies near death are often
curiously full of unreasoning pleasure. Within himself Toyner called the
place the Garden of Eden.

"If only I had not brought you here!" said Ann. "If only I had not left
the canoe untied!"

For answer Bart looked around upon the trees and flowers and upon her
with happy eyes that had no hint of past or future in them. Something of
the secret of all peace--the _Eternal Now_--remained with him as long
as the weakness of this injury remained.