'You'd rather I went away, wouldn't you,' said Mr. Kane; 'but let me say first that I'm very sorry to have intruded, and very sorry indeed to see that you're unhappy.' She now felt that she did not want him to go, indeed she felt that she would rather he stayed. After the loneliness of her despair, she liked the presence of the friendly, wandering dog. It would be comforting to have it sit down beside you and to have it thud its tail when you chanced to look at it. Mr. Kane would not intrude, he would be a consolation. 'No, don't go,' she said. 'Do sit down and rest. It's frightfully hot, isn't it.' He sat down in front of her, clasping his knees about, as was his wont, and exposing thereby not only the entire oatmeal sock, but a section of leg nearly matching it in tint. 'Well, I am rather tired,' he said. 'I've lost my way, I guess.' And, looking about him, he went on: 'Very peaceful things aren't they, the woods. Trees are very peaceful things, pacifying things, I mean.' Helen looked up at them. 'Yes, they are peaceful. I don't know that I find them pacifying.' His eyes came back to her and he considered her again for a moment before he said, smiling gently, 'I've been crying too.' In the little pause that followed this announcement they continued to look at each other, and it was not so much that their eyes sounded the other's eyes as that they deepened for each other and, without effort or surprise, granted to each other the quiet avowal of complete sincerity. 'I'm very sorry that you are unhappy, too,' said Helen. She noticed now that his eyes were jaded and that all his clear, terse little face was softened and relaxed. 'Yes, I'm unhappy,' said Franklin. 'It's queer, isn't it, that we should find each other like this. I'm glad I've found you: two unhappy people are better together, I think, than alone. It eases things a little, don't you think so?' 'Perhaps it does,' said Helen. 'That is, it does if one of them is so kind and so pacifying as you are; you do remind me of the trees,' she smiled. 'Ah, well, that's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed,' said Franklin, looking about him at the limpid green. 'It makes me feel I'm not intruding, to have you say that to me. It didn't follow, of course, because I'm glad to find you that you would be glad I'd come. You don't show it much, Miss Buchanan'--he was looking at her again--'your crying.' 'I'm always afraid that I show it dreadfully. That's the worst of it, I don't dare indulge in it often.' 'No, you don't show it much. You sometimes look as though you had been crying when I'm sure you haven't--early in the morning, for instance.' Helen could but smile again. 'You are very observant. You really noticed that?'