When she had watched him until she thoroughly convinced herself of these things, one degree of the bitterness in Mahala’s heart was assuaged. Another thing that helped her on the road toward an approach to her normal condition was the attitude of Ellen Ford. Ellen was a charming girl. Mahala soon learned to love her. She was frank, unusually innocent. Mahala decided that her mother must have used a much greater degree of caution in speech before her daughter than she had understood was common with country women in general. Ellen came when she was wanted; with perfect cheerfulness went home when she was not. She chattered on every other subject on earth, but she never evinced the slightest curiosity concerning Mahala or what the future might have in store for her. If the task Mahala laid out for herself was so heavy she could not finish it, Jason went down the road and told Ellen. The girl came singing, did what was wanted efficiently, begged the privilege of brushing Mahala’s hair or doing any possible personal service for her, and went back singing, Mahala thought, as spontaneously as the bluebirds and the fat robins of the garden and the orchard. For these reasons, Mahala found her heart running out to her; found herself praising her and loving her; listening for her song and her footstep; wishing that she might do for her some pleasing service in return for the many kind and practical things that Ellen could think of to do for her. Imperceptibly each day, but surely in a total of days, Mahala’s strength began to return, and with it came a high tide in her beauty. Washed in rain water and dried in the sun, the golden life came back to her hair; an adorable pink flush into her cheeks; a deeper red than they ever had known stained her lips. The one place that the mark remained was in the depths of her eyes. In them dwelt a dread question, a pain that never left them. Looking deep into them at times, Jason felt that the one thing for which he could thank God was that he did not there find any semblance of fear. The horror that had hovered over his boyhood from a gnawing stomach, a beaten body, and a tormented brain, had left him in such a condition that at times he acknowledged a sickening surge of pure fear sweeping through him. Whenever this happened, he set himself to master it, to prove that he was not afraid. There had been a few times in his life when the obsession was heaviest upon him, that he had deliberately put himself in Martin Moreland’s presence, in order to prove to himself that he could stand, in those days, at the height of the banker with his shoulders squared and his eyes able to meet those of any man straightly. He never had been afraid of Junior physically since the first day in which he had tested the high tide of his youth upon him. Knowing what Junior had been able to do to him, feeling in the depths of his heart that the troubles that had fallen upon Mahala were