Through the gateway to his big, honest heart, one summer in the years gone by, love had entered, and--finding it the dwelling of honor and truth--it abided there still. Thinking of Williston’s infatuation for Gloria Howard, he could but compare it to his own entire, endless love for Kathryn Verrill. He recalled a day that would always stand out in bold relief from all others in memory’s gallery. In fancy now he could see the wide veranda built around one of the loveliest summer homes of the beautiful Thousand Islands. Cushions--soft and silken--lay tossed about on easy chairs and divans that were scattered about here and there among tubs of palms and potted plants. On little tables up and down the veranda’s length were summer novels open and face downward as their readers had left them, or dainty and neglected bits of fancy-work. Cooling drinks and dishes of luscious fruits had been placed there within their reach. Keith closed his eyes with a sigh, as the memory of it all came back to him. Here, amid the sage and desert sands, it was like a dream of lost Paradise. It had been a day of opalescent lights, and through its translucence they (he and--she) could see the rest of the party on the sparkling waters, among the pleasure craft from other wooded islands, full of charm, near by. Only these two--he and she--were here on the broad veranda. The echo of distant laughter came to them, but here was a languorous silence. Even the yellow-feathered warblers in the gilded cages above them had, for the time, hushed their songs. Kathryn Verrill was swinging slowly back and forth in one of the hammocks swung along the veranda, the sunlight filtering through the slats of the lowered blinds streaking with gold her filmy draperies as they swept backward and forward on the polished floor. Her fingers had ceased their play on the mandolin strings, and there was now no sound about them louder than the hum of the big and gorgeous bumble-bee buzzing above their heads. Summer sweetness anywhere, and she the sweetest of it all! Then----