The ecstasy that came to Robert Morton with his new-found happiness swept before it the clouds that had overcast his sky, until his horizon was almost as radiant as it had been on the day of his arrival at Wilton. Janoah Eldridge came no more to the Spence cottage; Snelling had vanished; the Galbraiths were occupied with their own affairs; and the barrier between Bob and Willie began slowly to wear away. The little old man was of far too believing and charitable a nature to hold out long against his own optimism; moreover, he detested strife and was much more willing to endure a wrong than to harbor ill feeling; hence he was only too ready to reconstruct Janoah's venomous story into terms of his native blind faith. He did not, to be sure, understand, and for days and nights he puzzled ceaselessly over the problem events presented; but as no light was forthcoming, his zest in the enigma cooled until the mystery took on the unfathomable quality of various other mysteries he had wrestled with and finally shelved as unanswerable. There was the invention to finish, and so eager was he to see it completed that to this interest every other thought was subordinated. Therefore, although misgivings assailed him, they gradually receded into his subconsciousness, leaving behind them much of the good will he had formerly cherished toward Robert Morton. The olive branch Willie tacitly extended Bob seized with avidity. Had not the world suddenly become too perfect to be marred by discord? Why, in the exuberance of his joy he would have forgiven anybody anything! He did own to bruised feelings, but time is a great healer of both mental and of physical pain, and the hurts he had received soon dimmed into scars that carried with them no acute sensation. His mind was too much occupied with Delight Hathaway and the wonder of their love for him to think to any great extent of himself. The romance still remained a secret between them, for so vehement had been the turmoil into which Zenas Henry had been thrown by the tidings of the girl's past history that it seemed unwise to follow blow with blow and acquaint him just at present with the news of the lovers' engagement. Moreover, there was Cynthia Galbraith to consider. Robert Morton was too chivalrous to be brutal to any woman, much less an old friend like Cynthia.