"That's just it. You _feel_ life. It isn't coloured for you by others. You get its form, its hardness or softness, its fragrance or the reverse, but you fix your own colour. That's why you'd be such a ripping critic. Will you let me read some of my book to you?" "Oh! of course. I'd be so glad and proud." "Come, now, you're not joking?" The large golden eyes turned slowly and rested upon Northrup. "I do not think I ever joke"--Mary-Clare's words fell softly--"about such things. Why, it would seem like seeing a soul get into a body. You do not joke about that." "You make me horribly afraid about my book. People do not usually take the writing of a book in just that way." "I wish they did. You see, my doctor often said that books would live if they only held truth. He loved these words, 'And above all else--Truth taketh away the victory!' I can see him now waving his arms and singing that defiantly, as if he were challenging the whole world. He said that truth was the soul of things." "But who knows Truth?" "There is something in us that knows it. Don't you think so?" "But we see it so differently." "That does not matter, if we know it! Truth is fixed and sure. Isn't that so?" "I do not know. Sometimes I think so: then--good Lord! that is what I'm trying to find out." Northrup's face grew tense. "And so am I." "All right, then, let's go on the quest together!" Northrup stood up and offered his hand to Mary-Clare as if actually they were to start on the pilgrimage. "Where and when may I begin to read to you?" The children were coming nearer. "While this weather lasts, I'd love the open. Wouldn't you? Logs, like this, are such perfect places." "I thought perhaps"--Northrup looked what he dared not voice--"I thought perhaps in that cabin of yours we might be more comfortable, more undisturbed." Mary-Clare smiled and shook her head. "No, I think it would be impossible. That cabin is too full--well, I'm sure I could not listen as I should, to you, in that cabin." And so it was that the book became the medium of expression to Northrup and Mary-Clare. It justified that which might otherwise have been impossible. It drugged them both to any sense of actual danger. It was like a shield behind which they might advance and retreat unseen and unharmed. And if the shield ever fell for an unguarded moment, Northrup believed that he alone was vouchsafed clear vision. He grew to marvel at the simplicity and purity of Mary-Clare's point of view. He knew that she must have gone through some gross experiences with a man like Rivers, but they had left her singularly untouched.