"Child, the day you got me out of the chair I was sure! Before that I hoped, prayed; then I knew! I drew the bandage off a little and I saw your eyes." "My beloved!" And Donelle, kneeling beside him, raised her face from his breast. "I am going to kiss you now, Donelle," he said, "but to think that such as I am is the best that life has for you, is——!" "Don’t," she whispered, "don’t! Remember the dear Dream of First Joy, my man. I never lost our First Joy. God let me keep her safe." From across the road came the wild, excited yelps of the released Nick. Slowly, for Nick was old, he padded up the steps, into the room, up to the girl on the floor beside the chair. Donelle pressed the shaggy head to her. "Nick always has kept First Joy, too," she whispered. And oh, but her eyes were wonderful. "And you’ll play again for me, Donelle?" Norval still held her, though he heard Law and Mam’selle approaching. "Sometime, dear man, sometime I’ll bring the fiddle to the wood-cabin. Sometime after I get strings. The strings, some of them, have snapped." Late that evening, quite late, nine o’clock surely, Law and Jo stood near the hearth where the embers still glowed. "Where are the children?" Law asked as if all the mad happenings of the day were bagatelles. "Out on the road, the road!" Jo’s face quivered. "The moonlight is wonderful, the road is as clear as day." She was thinking of Tom Gavot while her great heart ached with pity of it all. "Queer ideas that young Gavot had about roads," Law said musingly, "Jim has told me." "Poor boy, he got precious little for himself out of life," Jo flung back. The bitterness lay deep in Mam’selle’s heart. Almost her love for Donelle, her joy in her, were darkened by what seemed to Jo to be forgetfulness. That was unforgivable in her eyes. "I wonder!" Law said gently; he was learning to understand the woman beside him. "If this were all of the road, you might feel the way you do. But it’s a mighty little part of it, Mam’selle. To most of us is given short sight, to a few, long. I would wager all I have that young Gavot always saw over the hilltop." "That’s a good thing to say and feel, Mr. Law." Jo tried to control her brows, failed, and let Law look full in her splendid eyes. "Life’s too big for us, Mam’selle," he said, "too big for us. There are times when it lets us run along, lets us believe we are managing it. Then comes something like this war that proves that when life needs us, it clutches us again. "It needs those two out there on the road in the moonlight, one groping, the other leading; on and on! Life will use them for its own purposes. No use in struggling, Mam’selle; life has us all by the throat." "You’re a strange man, Mr. Law." Jo was trembling. "You’re a strange woman, Mam’selle." There was a pause. Out on the road Donelle was singing a little French song, one she had brought with her out of the Home at St. Michael’s.