The heavy cloud lightened slowly but steadily; Martin had a long talk, dreaded by Cherry from the first hours of the accident, with his physicians. He bore the ultimatum with unexpected fortitude. "Let me get this straight," he said, slowly. "The arm is O. K. and the leg, but the back--" Cherry, kneeling beside him, her hands on his, drew a wincing breath. Martin reassured her with an indulgent nod. "I've known it right along!" he told her. He looked at the doctors. "It's no go?" "I don't see why I should deceive you, my dear boy," said the younger doctor, who had grown very fond of him. "You can still beat me at bridge, you know, you can read and write, and come to the table, after awhile; you have your devoted wife to keep finding new things for you to do! Next summer now--a chair out in the garden--" Cherry was fearfully watching her husband's face. "We'll all do what we can to make it easy, Mart!" she whispered, in tears. He looked at her with a whimsical smile. "Mind very much taking care of a helpless man all your life?" he asked, with a hint of his old confident manner. "Oh, Mart, I mind only for you!" she said. Peter, standing behind the doctors, slipped from the room unnoticed. Late that evening, when Martin was asleep, Cherry came noiselessly from the sick-room, to find Peter alone in the dimly lighted sitting room. The fire had burned low, and he was sitting before it, sunk into his chair, and leaning forward, fingers loosely locked, and sombre eyes fixed on the dull pink glow of the logs. He looked tired, Cherry thought, and was so buried in thought that she at first attempted to go quietly through the room without rousing him. But he glanced at her, feeling rather than hearing her presence, and called her. "Come over here, will you, Cherry? I want to speak to you." Something in his voice fluttered her for a second; she had not heard the echo of the old mood for a long time. She came, with an inquiring and yet not wholly unconscious look, to the fireside, and he stood up to greet her. "Tired?" he asked, in an unnatural voice. "I--I was just going to bed," she answered, hesitatingly. But she sat down, nevertheless; sank comfortably into the chair opposite his own, and stretched her little feet, crossed at the ankle, before her, as if she were indeed tired. "I don't know what should make me--always--so weary!" she said, smiling. "I don't do a thing, really, all day!" Utterly relaxed, her small figure in its plain black gown, with the childish white she always wore at collar and wrist, looked like the figure of a child. Her golden hair shone with a dull gleam in the dim light; there was a glint of firelight in her dropped lashes.