"Lord help us!" Jock felt the relief of an unburdened mind; "is it in your religion to tie anything fast?" "Yes; yes." Drew was looking over the sunlighted hills and thinking of that lovely, dreaming face of a year ago. "And now," Filmer was drawling on, "while you and me are on this sort of house-cleaning spell, let me drop another item of interest into your think-tank. We-all up here ain't going to stand for any preaching business. I say this outspoken and friendly, meaning no ill feeling; just plain, what's what. You see them ideas of yours what you handed out last year set folks thinking. They sounded so blasted innercent and easy that we all chewed on 'em for a time, and some of us got stung. Now them as is native here can't think without suffering; and them as came here, came to get rid of thinking, and so you see none of us want to be riled along that _line_. See?" "I see." Drew smiled, and stretched his thin white hand out to Filmer. "Thanks. But if they'll let me live--that's all I want. It's my only way of preaching, anyhow--and Filmer, I _am_ going to live. I feel the blood running to my heart and brain. I feel it bringing back hope and interest--a man can make a place for himself anywhere if there are men and women about. _I_ thought first--back there--when I dropped everything, that there never could be anything else worth while, but I tell you old man, if you take even a remnant of life and love to Death's portal you're always mighty glad to get the chance to come back and see the game out. It's when you go empty-handed, that you long to slip in and have done with it. Filmer, there's something yet left for me to do." Jock was holding the boyish hand in a grim grip. He tried to speak, but could not. He stared silently at the muffled figure in the long chair, then with an impatient grunt, dropped his hold and actually fled in order to hide the feelings that surged in his heart. Left alone, Drew sank wearily back and closed his eyes. The lately-acquired strength proved often a deserter when it was tested, and for the moment the sick man felt all the depression and inertia of the past. He _felt_, and that was his only gain. Before, he had been too indifferent to feel or care. "Poor, little, pretty thing!" he thought, with Joyce's face before him against the closed eyelids. "She couldn't stand it. She didn't look as if she could. I'm sorry she had to find her way out by such a commonplace path. What was Gaston thinking of to let her? He knew--he should have kept his hands off and not blasted what little hope might have been hers." Half dreamily he recalled what Filmer had just told him. His weakened body held no firm clutch on his imagination at that time of his life--it ran riot, often giving him abnormal pleasure by its vivid touches; occasionally causing him excruciating pain as he suffered, in an exaggerated way, with suffering.