But Donelle had finished her instructions, the boys were working intelligently, and she had wandered away with her heart singing within her, she knew not why. Then she threw back her head and laughed. She knew the reason at last, Tom Gavot was coming back! Tom had been seeing roads in the deeper woods for nearly three weeks, but he was coming back. Marcel had said so. Of course that was why Donelle was happy. And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple keeping time; The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by. Over and over Donelle said the words in a kind of chant which presently degenerated into words merely strung together. "Like a rhyme—keeping time—like a cry—going by——" and then suddenly she heard her name. "Donelle!" Standing under a flaming maple was Norval. "I have been following you," he said, and his eyes, dark, compelling, were holding hers. "Why, Mr. Richard Alton?" "Because I am going to make you promise to play your fiddle again." "No, I am happier when I forget my fiddle." "Why, Donelle Morey, are you happier?" "You would not understand." "I’d try. Come, sit here on this log. The sun strikes it and we will be warm." Donelle stepped off the narrow path and reached the log, while Norval sat down beside her. "Now tell me about that fiddle." "Once," Donelle raised her eyes to his, "once, for a long time I stayed, you would not know if I told you where, but it was near here and yet so far away. Everything was different—I thought I belonged there and I was the happiest girl, and had such big dreams. They taught me to play; a wonderful old man said I could play and I did. A dear lady opened the way for me to go on! Then something happened. It was just a word, but it told me that I did not belong in that lovely place, and if I went on I would be—cheating somebody; somebody who had let me have my life and never asked anything, who never would, but who would go on, making the best of——" Donelle’s eyes were full of tears, her throat ached. "Of what, little girl?" "The—the bits that were left." "Perhaps," Norval, quite unconsciously laid his hand over Donelle’s which were clasped on her knees, "perhaps that somebody could have made quite a splendid showing of the bits, dear girl. And you might have made the place yours, the one that did not seem quite your own. Places are not always inherited, you know. Often they are—conquered." "You make me afraid," said Donelle as she looked down at the hand covering hers. "You see, I want to do the thing you say. I almost did it, but the dear lady died. I’m not very brave; I think I would gave gone." "She may not be the only one, child." "But I couldn’t take anything unless I had it, clean and safe. I wouldn’t want it, unless I, myself, made it sure first. I’m like that. Don’t you think something you are afraid of being sometimes keeps you from being what you want to be?"