"Yes," agreed Frank, "I mean that, too--and I wish just the same. We could have fish every day, and such hoecake, and this nice tea, and I would pick berries like these, and you could gather mushrooms. And we would have squirrels to amuse us, and you would read to me, and perhaps I should write poems of the hills and the storms and the haunted woods, and we could live so close to nature and drink so deeply of its ever renewing youth that old age could not find us, and we should live on and on and be always happy--happy ever after." The girl's hand lay upon the table, and when his heavier palm closed over it she did not draw it away. "I can almost love you when you are like this," she whispered. "And if I am always like this----?" They spoke very low, and the hermit sat in the high-back chair, bowed and staring into the blaze. Yet perhaps something of what they said drifted to his ear--perhaps it was only old and troubling memories stirring within him that caused him to rise and walk back and forth before the fire. His guests had finished now, and they came back presently to the big, deep settle, happy in the comfort of plenteous food, the warmth and the cosy seat, and the wild unconvention of it all. The beat of the rain did not trouble them. Secretly they were glad of any excuse for remaining by the hermit's hearth. Their host did not appear to notice them at first, but paced a turn up and down, then seated himself in the high-backed chair and gazed into the embers. A bevy of the little squirrels crept up and scaled his knees and shoulders, but with that curious note of warning he sent them scampering. The pine knot sputtered low and he tossed it among the coals, where it renewed its blaze. For a time there was silence, with only the rain sobbing at the door. Then by and by--very, very softly, as one who muses aloud--he spoke: "I, too, have had my dreams--dreams which were ever of happiness for me--and for another; happiness that would not end, yet which was to have no more than its rare beginning. "That was a long time ago--as many as thirty years, maybe. I have kept but a poor account of time, for what did it matter here?" He turned a little to Constance. "Your face and voice, young lady, bring it all back now, and stir me to speak of it again--the things of which I have spoken to no one before--not even to Robin." "To Robin!" The words came involuntarily from Constance. "Yes, Robin Farnham, now of the Lodge. He found his way here once, just as you did. It was in his early days on the mountains, and he came to me out of a white mist, just as you came, and I knew him for her son." Constance started, but the words on her lips were not uttered.