"But you weren't very clever to do this. Whew! What did you hit your thumb like that for?" "Dunno." He looked ruefully at the crushed member which the doctor laved gently and soothingly. "Why didn't you come to me with it?" "Maw 'lowed the' wa'n't no use pesterin' you with eve'ything. She tol' me eve'y man had to larn to hit a nail on the haid." David laughed, and the child trotted away happy, his hand in a sling made of one of the doctor's linen handkerchiefs, and his box of pencils and his book hugged to his irregularly beating heart; but it was with a grave face that Thryng saw him disappear among the great masses of pink laurel bloom. That evening, as the glow in the west deepened and died away and the stars came out one by one and sent their slender rays down upon the hills, David sat on his rock with his flute in his hand, waiting for a moment to arrive when he could put it to his lips and send out the message of glad hopes he had sent before. She had asked that one little thing, that his music might still be glad, and so for Cassandra's sake it must be. He tried once and again, but he could not play. At last, putting away from him his repentant thoughts, he gave his heart full sway, saying to himself: "For this moment I will imagine harmlessly that my vision is all mine and my dream come true. It is the only way." Then he played as if it were he whom she had kissed so passionately, instead of his flute; and thus it was the glad notes were falling on her spirit when Frale found her. CHAPTER XVI IN WHICH FRALE RETURNS AND LISTENS TO THE COMPLAINTS OF DECATUR IRWIN'S WIFE All was quiet and lonely around Carew's Crossing when Frale dropped from the train and struck off over the mountain. Soon there would be bustle and stir and life about the place, for the hotel would be open and people would be crowding in, some to escape the heat of the far South and the low countries, some from the cities either North or South to whom the bracing air of the mountains would bring renewed vitality--business men with shattered nerves and women whose high play during the winter at the game of social life had left them nervous wrecks. But now the beauty of the spring and the sweet silences were undisturbed by alien chatter. As yet were to be heard only the noises of the forest--of wind and stream--of bird calls and the piping of turtles and the shrilling of insects or vibrant croaking of frogs--or mayhap the occasional sound of a gun, discharged by some solitary mountain boy, regardless of game laws, to provide a supper at home,--only these, as Frale climbed rapidly away from the station toward the Fall Place, and Cassandra. He would stop there first and then strike for his old haunts and hiding-places.