So going close to the shore he shouted such a peremptory request as virile man offers to weaklings. He patronized Jerome also, representing that the water was too rough for a boy, and recommending the boy to go home. Yet hours afterwards when the campfire smouldered, and the trees were wrestling, Lilian, sobbing and smothering her face with her pillow, heard the violin once more, playing softly in imitation of the wind harp. Next morning the river was a valley of black and sulphurous vapors, like a smoking volcanic fissure. The ague season had undoubtedly set in. Captain Eric and a squad of his men rowed their departing guests and the young lady’s luggage up river to the steamboat landing, and from this the party walked to a station in the woods. There was a bustle about tickets and checking. The station-master hurried out of his small general store with the mail-bag on his arm, for the train was already in sight. Miss Brooks’s hair clung in damp rings to her face. She turned to impress woods and water stretches upon her mind in one last glance, and her lips went white. Behind her stood Jerome, the porcelain quality of his face increased tenfold, the blueness of his eyes pierced by the keen anguish of a man. She crossed the platform to him, took his head between her hands, and rising on tiptoe kissed his forehead. Immediately afterwards she was handed up the railway carriage steps, and Jack was making a place for her and her traveling bag. The little station slid away. She had forgotten to wave to Eric one of the hands which trembled as she adjusted her belongings over and over. “Don’t say a word to me,” she commanded, meeting her lover’s eyes. “I didn’t know I was going to do it. I intend to marry you, Jack, because I would rather have you for a husband than any other man in the world. But he was my playmate. He brought back my childhood to me, and in return I gave him a wound!” Quite a year passed before she had further news of the Babe Jerome. Her brother moved his camp two days after her departure, and stayed out until November. The following summer Lilian and her husband came face to face with Mr. Marsh in that magic White City which stood a brief season beside Lake Michigan. The blue cape was not around his shoulders, but some other incongruous garment marked him. Lilian grasped his hand. He greeted the young pair. His hairy cheeks were sunken, and the keenness of his eye appeared dulled. “Are Jerome and his Aunt Betsey with you?” “The Babe has gone off with the quick consumption that took his mother,” said the old man, and Lilian became aware that her nails must be cutting his hand. She gasped, but could not say a word.