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肩書を与える: The Blue 城 (1926)
Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
eBook No.: 0200951h.html
Language: English
Date first 地位，任命するd: November 2002
Date most recently updated: December 2010

This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson

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The Blue 城

by

L M Montgomery

Published 1926

Contents

一時期／支部 1.
一時期／支部 2.
一時期／支部 3.
一時期／支部 4.
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CHAPTER I

If it had not rained on a 確かな May morning Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been 完全に different. She would have gone, with the 残り／休憩（する） of her 一族／派閥, to Aunt Wellington's 約束／交戦 picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.

Valancy wakened 早期に, in the lifeless, hopeless hour just 先行する 夜明け. She had not slept very 井戸／弁護士席. One does not sleep 井戸／弁護士席, いつかs, when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community and 関係 where the unmarried are 簡単に those who have failed to get a man.

Deerwood and the Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless old maidenhood. But Valancy herself had never やめる 放棄するd a 確かな pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet—never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man.

Ay, there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much 存在 an old maid. After all, she thought, 存在 an old maid couldn't かもしれない be as dreadful as 存在 married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What 傷つける her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid. No man had ever 願望（する）d her.

The 涙／ほころびs （機の）カム into her 注目する，もくろむs as she lay there alone in the faintly greying 不明瞭. She dared not let herself cry as hard as she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to, for two 推論する／理由s. She was afraid that crying might bring on another attack of that 苦痛 around the heart. She had had a （一定の）期間 of it after she had got into bed—rather worse than any she had had yet. And she was afraid her mother would notice her red 注目する，もくろむs at breakfast and keep at her with minute, 執拗な, mosquito-like questions regarding the 原因（となる） thereof.

"Suppose," thought Valancy with a 恐ろしい grin, "I answered with the plain truth, 'I am crying because I cannot get married.' How horrified Mother would be—though she is ashamed every day of her life of her old maid daughter."

But of course 外見s should be kept up. "It is not," Valancy could hear her mother's prim, 独裁的な 発言する／表明する 主張するing, "it is not maidenly to think about men."

The thought of her mother's 表現 made Valancy laugh—for she had a sense of humour nobody in her 一族／派閥 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd. For that 事柄, there were a good many things about Valancy that nobody 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd. But her laughter was very superficial and presently she lay there, a 密談する／（身体を）寄せ集めるd, futile little 人物／姿／数字, listening to the rain 注ぐing 負かす／撃墜する outside and watching, with a sick distaste, the 冷気／寒がらせる, merciless light creeping into her ugly, sordid room.

She knew the ugliness of that room by heart—knew it and hated it. The yellow-painted 床に打ち倒す, with one hideous, "麻薬中毒の" rug by the bed, with a grotesque, "麻薬中毒の" dog on it, always grinning at her when she awoke; the faded, dark-red paper; the 天井 discoloured by old 漏れるs and crossed by 割れ目s; the 狭くする, pinched little washstand; the brown-paper lambrequin with purple roses on it; the spotted old looking-glass with the 割れ目 across it, propped up on the 不十分な dressing-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する; the jar of 古代の potpourri made by her mother in her mythical honeymoon; the 爆撃する-covered box, with one burst corner, which Cousin Stickles had made in her 平等に mythical girlhood; the beaded pincushion with half its bead fringe gone; the one stiff, yellow 議長，司会を務める; the faded old motto, "Gone but not forgotten," worked in coloured yarns about 広大な／多数の／重要な-grandmother Stirling's grim old 直面する; the old photographs of 古代の 親族s long banished from the rooms below. There were only two pictures that were not of 親族s. One, an old chromo of a puppy sitting on a 雨の doorstep. That picture always made Valancy unhappy. That forlorn little dog crouched on the doorstep in the 運動ing rain! Why didn't some one open the door and let him in? The other picture was a faded, passe-partouted engraving of Queen Louise coming 負かす／撃墜する a stairway, which Aunt Wellington had lavishly given her on her tenth birthday. For nineteen years she had looked at it and hated it, beautiful, smug, self-満足させるd Queen Louise. But she never dared destroy it or 除去する it. Mother and Cousin Stickles would have been aghast, or, as Valancy irreverently 表明するd it in her thoughts, would have had a fit.

Every room in the house was ugly, of course. But downstairs 外見s were kept up somewhat. There was no money for rooms nobody ever saw. Valancy いつかs felt that she could have done something for her room herself, even without money, if she were permitted. But her mother had 消極的なd every timid suggestion and Valancy did not 固執する. Valancy never 固執するd. She was afraid to. Her mother could not brook 対立. Mrs. Stirling would sulk for days if 感情を害する／違反するd, with the 空気／公表するs of an 侮辱d duchess.

The only thing Valancy liked about her room was that she could be alone there at night to cry if she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to.

But, after all, what did it 事柄 if a room, which you used for nothing except sleeping and dressing in, were ugly? Valancy was never permitted to stay alone in her room for any other 目的. People who 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be alone, so Mrs. Frederick Stirling and Cousin Stickles believed, could only want to be alone for some 悪意のある 目的. But her room in the Blue 城 was everything a room should be.

Valancy, so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life, was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her day-dreams. Nobody in the Stirling 一族／派閥, or its ramifications, 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd this, least of all her mother and Cousin Stickles. They never knew that Valancy had two homes—the ugly red brick box of a home, on Elm Street, and the Blue 城 in Spain. Valancy had lived spiritually in the Blue 城 ever since she could remember. She had been a very tiny child when she 設立する herself 所有するd of it. Always, when she shut her 注目する，もくろむs, she could see it plainly, with its turrets and 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道するs on the pine-覆う？ mountain 高さ, wrapped in its faint, blue loveliness, against the sunset skies of a fair and unknown land. Everything wonderful and beautiful was in that 城. Jewels that queens might have worn; 式服s of moonlight and 解雇する／砲火／射撃; couches of roses and gold; long flights of shallow marble steps, with 広大な／多数の／重要な, white urns, and with slender, もや-覆う？ maidens going up and 負かす／撃墜する them; 法廷，裁判所s, marble-中心存在d, where shimmering fountains fell and nightingales sang の中で the myrtles; halls of mirrors that 反映するd only handsome knights and lovely women—herself the loveliest of all, for whose ちらりと見ること men died. All that supported her through the 退屈 of her days was the hope of going on a dream spree at night. Most, if not all, of the Stirlings would have died of horror if they had known half the things Valancy did in her Blue 城.

For one thing she had やめる a few lovers in it. Oh, only one at a time. One who 支持を得ようと努めるd her with all the romantic ardour of the age of chivalry and won her after long devotion and many 行為s of derring-do, and was wedded to her with pomp and circumstance in the 広大な／多数の／重要な, 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する-hung chapel of the Blue 城.

At twelve, this lover was a fair lad with golden curls and heavenly blue 注目する，もくろむs. At fifteen, he was tall and dark and pale, but still やむを得ず handsome. At twenty, he was ascetic, dreamy, spiritual. At twenty-five, he had a clean-削減（する） jaw, わずかに grim, and a 直面する strong and rugged rather than handsome. Valancy never grew older than twenty-five in her Blue 城, but recently—very recently—her hero had had 赤みを帯びた, tawny hair, a 新たな展開d smile and a mysterious past.

I don't say Valancy deliberately 殺人d these lovers as she outgrew them. One 簡単に faded away as another （機の）カム. Things are very convenient in this 尊敬（する）・点 in Blue 城s.

But, on this morning of her day of 運命／宿命, Valancy could not find the 重要な of her Blue 城. Reality 圧力（をかける）d on her too hardly, barking at her heels like a maddening little dog. She was twenty-nine, lonely, undesired, ill-favoured—the only homely girl in a handsome 一族／派閥, with no past and no 未来. As far as she could look 支援する, life was 淡褐色 and colourless, with not one 選び出す／独身 crimson or purple 位置／汚点／見つけ出す anywhere. As far as she could look 今後 it seemed 確かな to be just the same until she was nothing but a 独房監禁, little withered leaf 粘着するing to a wintry bough. The moment when a woman realises that she has nothing to live for—neither love, 義務, 目的 nor hope—持つ／拘留するs for her the bitterness of death.

"And I just have to go on living because I can't stop. I may have to live eighty years," thought Valancy, in a 肉親，親類d of panic. "We're all horribly long-lived. It sickens me to think of it."

She was glad it was raining—or rather, she was drearily 満足させるd that it was raining. There would be no picnic that day. This 年次の picnic, whereby Aunt and Uncle Wellington—one always thought of them in that succession—必然的に celebrated their 約束／交戦 at a picnic thirty years before, had been, of late years, a veritable nightmare to Valancy. By an impish coincidence it was the same day as her birthday and, after she had passed twenty-five, nobody let her forget it.

Much as she hated going to the picnic, it would never have occurred to her to 反逆者／反逆する against it. There seemed to be nothing of the 革命の in her nature. And she knew 正確に／まさに what every one would say to her at the picnic. Uncle Wellington, whom she disliked and despised even though he had 実行するd the highest Stirling aspiration, "marrying money," would say to her in a pig's whisper, "Not thinking of getting married yet, my dear?" and then go off into the bellow of laughter with which he invariably 結論するd his dull 発言／述べるs. Aunt Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in abject awe, would tell her about Olive's new chiffon dress and Cecil's last 充てるd letter. Valancy would have to look as pleased and 利益／興味d as if the dress and letter had been hers or else Aunt Wellington would be 感情を害する／違反するd. And Valancy had long ago decided that she would rather 感情を害する／違反する God than Aunt Wellington, because God might 許す her but Aunt Wellington never would.

Aunt Alberta, enormously fat, with an amiable habit of always referring to her husband as "he," as if he were the only male creature in the world, who could never forget that she had been a 広大な／多数の／重要な beauty in her 青年, would condole with Valancy on her sallow 肌—

"I don't know why all the girls of today are so sunburned. When I was a girl my 肌 was roses and cream. I was counted the prettiest girl in Canada, my dear."

Perhaps Uncle Herbert wouldn't say anything—or perhaps he would 発言／述べる jocularly, "How fat you're getting, Doss!" And then everybody would laugh over the 過度に humorous idea of poor, scrawny little Doss getting fat.

Handsome, solemn Uncle James, whom Valancy disliked but 尊敬（する）・点d because he was という評判の to be very clever and was therefore the 一族／派閥 oracle—brains 存在 非，不，無 too plentiful in the Stirling 関係—would probably 発言／述べる with the フクロウ-like sarcasm that had won him his 評判, "I suppose you're busy with your hope-chest these days?"

And Uncle Benjamin would ask some of his abominable conundrums, between wheezy chuckles, and answer them himself.

"What is the difference between Doss and a mouse?

"The mouse wishes to 害（を与える） the cheese and Doss wishes to charm the he's."

Valancy had heard him ask that riddle fifty times and every time she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to throw something at him. But she never did. In the first place, the Stirlings 簡単に did not throw things; in the second place, Uncle Benjamin was a 豊富な and childless old widower and Valancy had been brought up in the 恐れる and admonition of his money. If she 感情を害する／違反するd him he would 削減（する） her out of his will—supposing she were in it. Valancy did not want to be 削減（する） out of Uncle Benjamin's will. She had been poor all her life and knew the galling bitterness of it. So she 耐えるd his riddles and even smiled 拷問d little smiles over him.

Aunt Isabel, downright and disagreeable as an east 勝利，勝つd, would criticise her in some way—Valancy could not 予報する just how, for Aunt Isabell never repeated a 批評—she 設立する something new with which to jab you every time. Aunt Isabel prided herself on 説 what she thought, but didn't like it so 井戸／弁護士席 when other people said what they thought to her. Valancy never said what she thought.

Cousin Georgiana—指名するd after her 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-grandmother, who had been 指名するd after George the Fourth—would recount dolorously the 指名するs of all 親族s and friends who had died since the last picnic and wonder "which of us will be the first to go next."

Oppressively competent, Aunt Mildred would talk endlessly of her husband and her 嫌悪すべき prodigies of babies to Valancy, because Valancy would be the only one she could find to put up with it. For the same 推論する／理由, Cousin Gladys—really First Cousin Gladys once 除去するd, によれば the strict way in which the Stirlings 一覧表にするd 関係—a tall, thin lady who 認める she had a 極度の慎重さを要する disposition, would 述べる minutely the 拷問s of her neuritis. And Olive, the wonder girl of the whole Stirling 一族／派閥, who had everything Valancy had not—beauty, 人気, love—would show off her beauty and 推定する on her 人気 and flaunt her diamond insignia of love in Valancy's dazzled, envious 注目する，もくろむs.

There would be 非，不，無 of all this today. And there would be no packing up of teaspoons. The packing up was always left for Valancy and Cousin Stickles. And once, six years ago, a silver teaspoon from Aunt Wellington's wedding 始める，決める had been lost. Valancy never heard the last of that silver teaspoon. Its ghost appeared Banquo-like at every その後の family feast.

Oh, yes, Valancy knew 正確に／まさに what the picnic would be like and she blessed the rain that had saved her from it. There would be no picnic this year. If Aunt Wellington could not celebrate on the sacred day itself she would have no 祝賀 at all. Thank whatever gods there were for that.

Since there would be no picnic, Valancy made up her mind that, if the rain held up in the afternoon, she would go up to the library and get another of John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs. Valancy was never 許すd to read novels, but John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs were not novels. They were "nature 調書をとる／予約するs"—so the librarian told Mrs. Frederick Stirling—"all about the 支持を得ようと努めるd and birds and bugs and things like that, you know." So Valancy was 許すd to read them—under 抗議する, for it was only too evident that she enjoyed them too much. It was permissible, even laudable, to read to 改善する your mind and your 宗教, but a 調書をとる／予約する that was enjoyable was dangerous. Valancy did not know whether her mind was 存在 改善するd or not; but she felt ばく然と that if she had come across John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs years ago life might have been a different thing for her. They seemed to her to 産する／生じる glimpses of a world into which she might once have entered, though the door was forever 閉めだした to her now. It was only within the last year that John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs had been in the Deerwood library, though the librarian told Valancy that he had been a 井戸／弁護士席-known writer for several years.

"Where does he live?" Valancy had asked.

"Nobody knows. From his 調書をとる／予約するs he must be a Canadian, but no more （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） can be had. His publishers won't say a word. やめる likely John Foster is a nom de plume. His 調書をとる／予約するs are so popular we can't keep them in at all, though I really can't see what people find in them to rave over."

"I think they're wonderful," said Valancy, timidly.

"Oh—井戸／弁護士席—" 行方不明になる Clarkson smiled in a patronising fashion that relegated Valancy's opinions to limbo, "I can't say I care much for bugs myself. But certainly Foster seems to know all there is to know about them."

Valancy didn't know whether she cared much for bugs either. It was not John Foster's uncanny knowledge of wild creatures and insect life that enthralled her. She could hardly say what it was—some tantalising 誘惑する of a mystery never 明らかにする／漏らすd—some hint of a 広大な／多数の／重要な secret just a little その上の on—some faint, elusive echo of lovely, forgotten things—John Foster's 魔法 was indefinable.

Yes, she would get a new Foster 調書をとる／予約する. It was a month since she had Thistle 収穫, so surely Mother could not 反対する. Valancy had read it four times—she knew whole passages off by heart.

And—she almost thought she would go and see Dr. Trent about that queer 苦痛 around the heart. It had come rather often lately, and the palpitations were becoming annoying, not to speak of an occassional dizzy moment and a queer shortness of breath. But could she go to him without telling any one? It was a most daring thought. 非，不，無 of the Stirlings ever 協議するd a doctor without 持つ／拘留するing a family 会議 and getting Uncle James' 是認. Then, they went to Dr. Ambrose 沼 of Port Lawrence, who had married Second Cousin Adelaide Stirling.

But Valancy disliked Dr. Ambrose 沼. And, besides, she could not get to Port Lawrence, fifteen miles away, without 存在 taken there. She did not want any one to know about her heart. There would be such a fuss made and every member of the family would come 負かす／撃墜する and talk it over and advise her and 警告を与える her and 警告する her and tell her horrible tales of 広大な／多数の／重要な-aunts and cousins forty times 除去するd who had been "just like that and dropped dead without a moment's 警告, my dear."

Aunt Isabel would remember that she had always said Doss looked like a girl who would have heart trouble—"so pinched and 頂点（に達する）d always"; and Uncle Wellington would take it as a personal 侮辱, when "no Stirling ever had heart 病気 before"; and Georgiana would forebode in perfectly audible asides that "poor, dear little Doss isn't long for this world, I'm afraid"; and Cousin Gladys would say, "Why, my heart has been like that for years," in a トン that 暗示するd no one else had any 商売／仕事 even to have a heart; and Olive—Olive would 単に look beautiful and superior and disgustingly healthy, as if to say, "Why all this fuss over a faded superfluity like Doss when you have me?"

Valancy felt that she couldn't tell anybody unless she had to. She felt やめる sure there was nothing at all 本気で wrong with her heart and no need of all the pother that would 続いて起こる if she について言及するd it. She would just slip up 静かに and see Dr. Trent that very day. As for his 法案, she had the two hundred dollars that her father had put in the bank for her the day she was born, but she would 内密に take out enough to 支払う／賃金 Dr. Trent. She was never 許すd to use even the 利益／興味 of this.

Dr. Trent was a gruff, outspoken, absent-minded old fellow, but he was a recognised 当局 on heart-病気, even if he were only a general practitioner in out-of-the-world Deerwood. Dr. Trent was over seventy and there had been rumours that he meant to retire soon. 非，不，無 of the Stirling 一族／派閥 had ever gone to him since he had told Cousin Gladys, ten years before, that her neuritis was all imaginary and that she enjoyed it. You couldn't patronise a doctor who 侮辱d your first-cousin-once-除去するd like that—not to について言及する that he was a Presbyterian when all the Stirlings went to the Anglican church. But Valancy, between the devil of disloyalty to 一族／派閥 and the 深い sea of fuss and clatter and advice, thought she would take a chance with the devil.

CHAPTER II

When cousin Stickles knocked at her door, Valancy knew it was half-past seven and she must get up. As long as she could remember, Cousin Stickles had knocked at her door at half-past seven. Cousin Stickles and Mrs. Frederick Stirling had been up since seven, but Valancy was 許すd to 嘘（をつく） abed half an hour longer because of a family tradition that she was delicate. Valancy got up, though she hated getting up more this morning than ever she had before. What was there to get up for? Another dreary day like all the days that had に先行するd it, 十分な of meaningless little 仕事s, joyless and unimportant, that 利益d nobody. But if she did not get up at once she would not be ready for breakfast at eight o'clock. Hard and 急速な／放蕩な times for meals were the 支配する in Mrs. Stirling's 世帯. Breakfast at eight, dinner at one, supper at six, year in and year out. No excuses for 存在 late were ever 許容するd. So up Valancy got, shivering.

The room was 激しく 冷淡な with the raw, 侵入するing 冷気／寒がらせる of a wet May morning. The house would be 冷淡な all day. It was one of Mrs. Frederick's 支配するs that no 解雇する／砲火／射撃s were necessary after the twenty-fourth of May. Meals were cooked on the little oil-stove in the 支援する porch. And though May might be icy and October 霜-bitten, no 解雇する／砲火／射撃s were lighted until the twenty-first of October by the calendar. On the twenty-first of October Mrs. Frederick began cooking over the kitchen 範囲 and lighted a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 in the sitting-room stove in the evenings. It was whispered about in the 関係 that the late Frederick Stirling had caught the 冷淡な which resulted in his death during Valancy's first year of life because Mrs. Frederick would not have a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 on the twentieth of October. She lighted it the next day—but that was a day too late for Frederick Stirling.

Valancy took off and hung up in the closet her nightdress of coarse, unbleached cotton, with high neck and long, tight sleeves. She put on undergarments of a 類似の nature, a dress of brown gingham, 厚い, 黒人／ボイコット stockings and rubber-heeled boots. Of late years she had fallen into the habit of doing her hair with the shade of the window by the looking-glass pulled 負かす／撃墜する. The lines on her 直面する did not show so plainly then. But this morning she jerked the shade to the very 最高の，を越す and looked at herself in the leprous mirror with a 熱烈な 決意 to see herself as the world saw her.

The result was rather dreadful. Even a beauty would have 設立する that 厳しい, unsoftened 味方する-light trying. Valancy saw straight 黒人／ボイコット hair, short and thin, always lustreless にもかかわらず the fact that she gave it one hundred 一打／打撃s of the 小衝突, neither more nor いっそう少なく, every night of her life and faithfully rubbed Redfern's Hair Vigor into the roots, more lustreless than ever in its morning roughness; 罰金, straight, 黒人／ボイコット brows; a nose she had always felt was much too small even for her small, three-cornered, white 直面する; a small, pale mouth that always fell open a trifle over little, pointed white teeth; a 人物／姿／数字 thin and flat-breasted, rather below the 普通の／平均（する） 高さ. She had somehow escaped the family high cheek-bones, and her dark-brown 注目する，もくろむs, too soft and shadowy to be 黒人／ボイコット, had a slant that was almost Oriental. Apart from her 注目する，もくろむs she was neither pretty nor ugly—just insignificant-looking, she 結論するd 激しく. How plain the lines around her 注目する，もくろむs and mouth were in that merciless light! And never had her 狭くする, white 直面する looked so 狭くする and so white.

She did her hair in a pompadour. Pompadours had long gone out of fashion, but they had been in when Valancy first put her hair up and Aunt Wellington had decided that she must always wear her hair so.

"It is the only way that becomes you. Your 直面する is so small that you must 追加する 高さ to it by a pompadour 影響," said Aunt Wellington, who always enunciated commonplaces as if uttering 深遠な and important truths.

Valancy had hankered to do her hair pulled low on her forehead, with puffs above the ears, as Olive was wearing hers. But Aunt Wellington's dictum had such an 影響 on her that she never dared change her style of hairdressing again. But then, there were so many things Valancy never dared do.

All her life she had been afraid of something, she thought 激しく. From the very 夜明け of recollection, when she had been so horribly afraid of the big 黒人／ボイコット 耐える that lived, so Cousin Stickles told her, in the closet under the stairs.

"And I always will be—I know it—I can't help it. I don't know what it would be like not to be afraid of something."

Afraid of her mother's sulky fits—afraid of 感情を害する／違反するing Uncle Benjamin—afraid of becoming a 的 for Aunt Wellington's contempt—afraid of Aunt Isabel's biting comments—afraid of Uncle James' 不賛成—afraid of 感情を害する／違反するing the whole 一族／派閥's opinions and prejudices—afraid of not keeping up 外見s—afraid to say what she really thought of anything—afraid of poverty in her old age. 恐れる—恐れる—恐れる—she could never escape from it. It bound her and enmeshed her like a spider's web of steel. Only in her Blue 城 could she find 一時的な 解放（する）. And this morning Valancy could not believe she had a Blue 城. She would never be able to find it again. Twenty-nine, unmarried, undesired—what had she to do with the fairy-like chatelaine of the Blue 城? She would 削減（する） such childish nonsense out of her life forever and 直面する reality unflinchingly.

She turned from her unfriendly mirror and looked out. The ugliness of the 見解（をとる） always struck her like a blow; the ragged 盗品故買者, the 宙返り／暴落する-負かす／撃墜する old carriage-shop in the next lot, plastered with 天然のまま, violently coloured 宣伝s; the grimy 鉄道 駅／配置する beyond, with the awful derelicts that were always hanging around it even at this 早期に hour. In the 注ぐing rain everything looked worse than usual, 特に the beastly 宣伝, "Keep that schoolgirl complexion." Valancy had kept her schoolgirl complexion. That was just the trouble. There was not a gleam of beauty anywhere—"正確に／まさに like my life," thought Valancy drearily. Her 簡潔な／要約する bitterness had passed. She 受託するd facts as resignedly as she had always 受託するd them. She was one of the people whom life always passes by. There was no altering that fact.

In this mood Valancy went 負かす／撃墜する to breakfast.

CHAPTER III

Breakfast was always the same. Oatmeal porridge, which Valancy loathed, toast and tea, and one teaspoonful of marmalade. Mrs. Frederick thought two teaspoonfuls extravagant—but that did not 事柄 to Valancy, who hated marmalade, too. The chilly, 暗い／優うつな little dining-room was chillier and gloomier than usual; the rain streamed 負かす／撃墜する outside the window; 出発／死d Stirlings, in atrocious, gilt でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるs, wider than the pictures, glowered 負かす／撃墜する from the 塀で囲むs. And yet Cousin Stickles wished Valancy many happy returns of the day!

"Sit up straight, Doss," was all her mother said.

Valancy sat up straight. She talked to her mother and Cousin Stickles of the things they always talked of. She never wondered what would happen if she tried to talk of something else. She knew. Therefore she never did it.

Mrs. Frederick was 感情を害する／違反するd with Providence for sending a 雨の day when she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go to a picnic, so she ate her breakfast in a sulky silence for which Valancy was rather 感謝する. But Christine Stickles whined endlessly on as usual, complaining about everything—the 天候, the 漏れる in the pantry, the price of oatmeal and butter—Valancy felt at once she had buttered her toast too lavishly—the 疫病／流行性の of mumps in Deerwood.

"Doss will be sure to ketch them," she foreboded.

"Doss must not go where she is likely to catch mumps," said Mrs. Frederick すぐに.

Valancy had never had mumps—or whooping cough—or chicken-pox—or measles—or anything she should have had—nothing but horrible 冷淡なs every winter. Doss' winter 冷淡なs were a sort of tradition in the family. Nothing, it seemed, could 妨げる her from catching them. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles did their heroic best. One winter they kept Valancy housed up from November to May, in the warm sitting-room. She was not even 許すd to go to church. And Valancy took 冷淡な after 冷淡な and ended up with bronchitis in June.

"非，不，無 of my family were ever like that," said Mrs. Frederick, 暗示するing that it must be a Stirling 傾向.

"The Stirling's seldom take 冷淡な," said Cousin Stickles resentfully. She had been a Stirling.

"I think," said Mrs. Frederick, "that if a person makes up her mind not to have 冷淡なs she will not have 冷淡なs."

So that was the trouble. It was all Valancy's own fault.

But on this particular morning Valancy's unbearable grievance was that she was called Doss. She had 耐えるd it for twenty-nine years, and all at once she felt she could not 耐える it any longer. Her 十分な 指名する was Valancy Jane. Valancy Jane was rather terrible, but she liked Valancy, with its 半端物, out-land 強い味. It was always a wonder to Valancy that the Stirlings had 許すd her to be so christened. She had been told that her maternal grandfather, old Amos Wansbarra, had chosen the 指名する for her. Her father had tacked on the Jane by way of civilising it, and the whole 関係 got out of the difficulty by 愛称ing her Doss. She never got Valancy from any one but 部外者s.

"Mother," she said timidly, "would you mind calling me Valancy after this? Doss seems so—so—I don't like it."

Mrs. Frederick looked at her daughter in astonishment. She wore glasses with enormously strong レンズs that gave her 注目する，もくろむs a peculiarly disagreeable 外見.

"What is the 事柄 with Doss?"

"It—seems so childish," 滞るd Valancy.

"Oh!" Mrs. Frederick had been a Wansbarra and the Wansbarra smile was not an 資産. "I see. 井戸／弁護士席, it should 控訴 you then. You are childish enough in all 良心, my dear child."

"I am twenty-nine," said the dear child 猛烈に.

"I wouldn't 布告する it from the house-最高の，を越すs if I were you, dear," said Mrs. Frederick. "Twenty-nine! I had been married nine years when I was twenty-nine."

"I was married at seventeen," said Cousin Stickles proudly.

Valancy looked at them furtively. Mrs. Frederick, except for those terrible glasses and the 麻薬中毒の nose that made her look, more like a parrot than a parrot itself could look, was not ill-looking. At twenty she might have been やめる pretty. But Cousin Stickles! And yet Christine Stickles had once been 望ましい in some man's 注目する，もくろむs. Valancy felt that Cousin Stickles, with her 幅の広い, flat, wrinkled 直面する, a mole 権利 on the end of her dumpy nose, bristling hairs on her chin, wrinkled yellow neck, pale, protruding 注目する，もくろむs, and thin, puckered mouth, had yet this advantage over her—this 権利 to look 負かす／撃墜する on her. And even yet Cousin Stickles was necessary to Mrs. Frederick. Valancy wondered pitifully what it would be like to be 手配中の，お尋ね者 by some one—needed by some one. No one in the whole world needed her, or would 行方不明になる anything from life if she dropped suddenly out of it. She was a 失望 to her mother. No one loved her. She had never so much as had a girl friend.

"I 港／避難所't even a gift for friendship," she had once 認める to herself pitifully.

"Doss, you 港／避難所't eaten your crusts," said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly.

It rained all the forenoon without 停止. Valancy pieced a quilt. Valancy hated piecing quilts. And there was no need of it. The house was 十分な of quilts. There were three big chests, packed with quilts, in the attic. Mrs. Frederick had begun 蓄える／店ing away quilts when Valancy was seventeen and she kept on 蓄える／店ing them, though it did not seem likely that Valancy would ever need them. But Valancy must be at work and fancy work 構成要素s were too expensive. Idleness was a 枢機けい／主要な sin in the Stirling 世帯. When Valancy had been a child she had been made to 令状 負かす／撃墜する every night, in a small, hated, 黒人／ボイコット notebook, all the minutes she had spent in idleness that day. On Sundays her mother made her こども them up and pray over them.

On this particular forenoon of this day of 運命 Valancy spent only ten minutes in idleness. At least, Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles would have called it idleness. She went to her room to get a better thimble and she opened Thistle 収穫 guiltily at 無作為の.

"The 支持を得ようと努めるd are so human," wrote John Foster, "that to know them one must live with them. An 時折の saunter through them, keeping to the 井戸／弁護士席-trodden paths, will never 収容する／認める us to their intimacy. If we wish to be friends we must 捜し出す them out and 勝利，勝つ them by たびたび（訪れる）, reverent visits at all hours; by morning, by noon, and by night; and at all seasons, in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter. さもなければ we can never really know them and any pretence we may make to the contrary will never 課す on them. They have their own 効果的な way of keeping 外国人s at a distance and shutting their hearts to mere casual sightseers. It is of no use to 捜し出す the 支持を得ようと努めるd from any 動機 except sheer love of them; they will find us out at once and hide all their 甘い, old-world secrets from us. But if they know we come to them because we love them they will be very 肉親，親類d to us and give us such treasures of beauty and delight as are not bought or sold in any market-place. For the 支持を得ようと努めるd, when they give at all, give unstintedly and 持つ／拘留する nothing 支援する from their true worshippers. We must go to them lovingly, 謙虚に, 根気よく, watchfully, and we shall learn what poignant loveliness lurks in the wild places and silent intervales, lying under starshine and sunset, what cadences of unearthly music are harped on 老年の pine boughs or crooned in copses of モミ, what delicate savours exhale from mosses and ferns in sunny corners or on damp brooklands, what dreams and myths and legends of an older time haunt them. Then the immortal heart of the 支持を得ようと努めるd will （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 against ours and its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever, so that no 事柄 where we go or how 広範囲にわたって we wander we shall yet be drawn 支援する to the forest to find our most 耐えるing kinship."

"Doss," called her mother from the hall below, "what are you doing all by yourself in that room?"

Valancy dropped Thistle 収穫 like a hot coal and fled downstairs to her patches; but she felt the strange exhilaration of spirit that always （機の）カム momentarily to her when she dipped into one of John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs. Valancy did not know much about 支持を得ようと努めるd—except the haunted groves of oak and pine around her Blue 城. But she had always 内密に hankered after them and a Foster 調書をとる／予約する about 支持を得ようと努めるd was the next best thing to the 支持を得ようと努めるd themselves.

At noon it stopped raining, but the sun did not come out until three. Then Valancy timidly said she thought she would go uptown.

"What do you want to go uptown for?" 需要・要求するd her mother.

"I want to get a 調書をとる／予約する from the library."

"You got a 調書をとる／予約する from the library only last week."

"No, it was four weeks."

"Four weeks. Nonsense!"

"Really it was, Mother."

"You are mistaken. It cannot かもしれない have been more than two weeks. I dislike contradiction. And I do not see what you want to get a 調書をとる／予約する for, anyhow. You waste too much time reading."

"Of what value is my time?" asked Valancy 激しく.

"Doss! Don't speak in that トン to me."

"We need some tea," said Cousin Stickles. "She might go and get that if she wants a walk—though this damp 天候 is bad for 冷淡なs."

They argued the 事柄 for ten minutes longer and finally Mrs. Frederick agreed rather grudgingly that Valancy might go.

CHAPTER IV

"Got your rubbers on?" called Cousin Stickles, as Valancy left the house.

Christine Stickles had never once forgotten to ask that question when Valancy went out on a damp day.

"Yes."

"Have you got your flannel petticoat on?" asked Mrs. Frederick.

"No."

"Doss, I really do not understand you. Do you want to catch your death of 冷淡な again?" Her 発言する／表明する 暗示するd that Valancy had died of a 冷淡な several times already. "Go upstairs this minute and put it on!"

"Mother, I don't need a flannel petticoat. My sateen one is warm enough."

"Doss, remember you had bronchitis two years ago. Go and do as you are told!"

Valancy went, though nobody will ever know just how 近づく she （機の）カム to 投げつけるing the rubber-工場／植物 into the street before she went. She hated that grey flannel petticoat more than any other 衣料品 she owned. Olive never had to wear flannel petticoats. Olive wore ruffled silk and sheer lawn and filmy laced flounces. But Olive's father had "married money" and Olive never had bronchitis. So there you were.

"Are you sure you didn't leave the soap in the water?" 需要・要求するd Mrs. Frederick. But Valancy was gone. She turned at the corner and looked 支援する 負かす／撃墜する the ugly, prim, respectable street where she lived. The Stirling house was the ugliest on it—more like a red brick box than anything else. Too high for its breadth, and made still higher by a bulbous glass cupola on 最高の，を越す. About it was the desolate, barren peace of an old house whose life is lived.

There was a very pretty house, with leaded casements and dubbed gables, just around the corner—a new house, one of those houses you love the minute you see them. Clayton Markley had built it for his bride. He was to be married to Jennie Lloyd in June. The little house, it was said, was furnished from attic to cellar, in 完全にする 準備完了 for its mistress.

"I don't envy Jennie the man," thought Valancy 心から—Clayton Markley was not one of her many ideals—"but I do envy her the house. It's such a nice young house. Oh, if I could only have a house of my own—ever so poor, so tiny—but my own! But then," she 追加するd 激しく, "there is no use in yowling for the moon when you can't even get a tallow candle."

In dreamland nothing would do Valancy but a 城 of pale sapphire. In real life she would have been fully 満足させるd with a little house of her own. She envied Jennie Lloyd more ひどく than ever today. Jennie was not so much better looking than she was, and not so very much younger. Yet she was to have this delightful house. And the nicest little Wedgwood teacups—Valancy had seen them; an open fireplace, and monogrammed linen; hemstitched tablecloths, and 磁器-closets. Why did everything come to some girls and nothing to others? It wasn't fair.

Valancy was once more seething with 反乱 as she walked along, a prim, dowdy little 人物／姿／数字 in her shabby raincoat and three-year-old hat, splashed occasionally by the mud of a passing モーター with its 侮辱ing shrieks. モーターs were still rather a novelty in Deerwood, though they were ありふれた in Port Lawrence, and most of the summer 居住（者）s up at Muskoka had them. In Deerwood only some of the smart 始める，決める had them; for even Deerwood was divided into 始める，決めるs. There was the smart 始める，決める—the 知識人 始める，決める—the old-family 始める，決める—of which the Stirlings were members—the ありふれた run, and a few pariahs. Not one of the Stirling 一族／派閥 had as yet condescended to a モーター, though Olive was teasing her father to have one. Valancy had never even been in a 自動車. But she did not hanker after this. In truth, she felt rather afraid of 自動車s, 特に at night. They seemed to be too much like big purring beasts that might turn and 鎮圧する you—or make some terrible savage leap somewhere. On the 法外な mountain 追跡するs around her Blue 城 only gaily caparisoned steeds might proudly pace; in real life Valancy would have been やめる contented to 運動 in a buggy behind a nice horse. She got a buggy 運動 only when some uncle or cousin remembered to fling her "a chance," like a bone to a dog.

CHAPTER V

Of course she must buy the tea in Uncle Benjamin's grocery-蓄える／店. To buy it anywhere else was 考えられない. Yet Valancy hated to go to Uncle Benjamin's 蓄える／店 on her twenty-ninth birthday. There was no hope that he would not remember it.

"Why," 需要・要求するd Uncle Benjamin, leeringly, as he tied up her tea, "are young ladies like bad grammarians?"

Valancy, with Uncle Benjamin's will in the background of her mind, said meekly, "I don't know. Why?"

"Because," chuckled Uncle Benjamin, "they can't 拒絶する／低下する matrimony."

The two clerks, Joe Hammond and Claude Bertram, chuckled also, and Valancy disliked them a little more than ever. On the first day Claude Bertram had seen her in the 蓄える／店 she had heard him whisper to Joe, "Who is that?" And Joe had said, "Valancy Stirling—one of the Deerwood old maids." "Curable or incurable?" Claude had asked with a snicker, evidently thinking the question very clever. Valancy smarted もう一度 with the sting of that old recollection.

"Twenty-nine," Uncle Benjamin was 説. "Dear me, Doss, you're 危険に 近づく the second corner and not even thinking of getting married yet. Twenty-nine. It seems impossible."

Then Uncle Benjamin said an 初めの thing. Uncle Benjamin said, "How time does 飛行機で行く!"

"I think it はうs," said Valancy passionately. Passion was so 外国人 to Uncle Benjamin's conception of Valancy that he didn't know what to make of her. To cover his 混乱, he asked another conundrum as he tied up her beans—Cousin Stickles had remembered at the last moment that they must have beans. Beans were cheap and filling.

"What two ages are apt to 証明する illusory?" asked Uncle Benjamin; and, not waiting for Valancy to "give it up," he 追加するd, "Mir-age and marri-age."

"M-i-r-a-g-e is pronounced mirazh," said Valancy すぐに, 選ぶing up her tea and her beans. For the moment she did not care whether Uncle Benjamin 削減（する） her out of his will or not. She walked out of the 蓄える／店 while Uncle Benjamin 星／主役にするd after her with his mouth open. Then he shook his 長，率いる.

"Poor Doss is taking it hard," he said.

Valancy was sorry by the time she reached the next crossing. Why had she lost her patience like that? Uncle Benjamin would be annoyed and would likely tell her mother that Doss had been impertinent—"to me!"—and her mother would lecture her for a week.

"I've held my tongue for twenty years," thought Valancy. "Why couldn't I have held it once more?"

Yes, it was just twenty, Valancy 反映するd, since she had first been twitted with her loverless 条件. She remembered the bitter moment perfectly. She was just nine years old and she was standing alone on the school playground while the other little girls of her class were playing a game in which you must be chosen by a boy as his partner before you could play. Nobody had chosen Valancy—little, pale, 黒人／ボイコット-haired Valancy, with her prim, long-sleeved apron and 半端物, slanted 注目する，もくろむs.

"Oh," said a pretty little girl to her, "I'm so sorry for you. You 港／避難所't got a beau."

Valancy had said defiantly, as she continued to say for twenty years, "I don't want a beau." But this afternoon Valancy once and for all stopped 説 that.

"I'm going to be honest with myself anyhow," she thought savagely. "Uncle Benjamin's riddles 傷つける me because they are true. I do want to be married. I want a house of my own—I want a husband of my own—I want 甘い, little fat babies of my own—" Valancy stopped suddenly aghast at her own recklessness. She felt sure that Rev. Dr. 立ち往生させるing, who passed her at this moment, read her thoughts and disapproved of them 完全に. Valancy was afraid of Dr. 立ち往生させるing—had been afraid of him ever since the Sunday, twenty-three years before, when he had first come to St. Albans'. Valancy had been too late for Sunday School that day and she had gone into the church timidly and sat in their pew. No one else was in the church—nobody except the new rector, Dr. 立ち往生させるing. Dr. 立ち往生させるing stood up in 前線 of the choir door, beckoned to her, and said 厳しく, "Little boy, come up here."

Valancy had 星／主役にするd around her. There was no little boy—there was no one in all the 抱擁する church but herself. This strange man with the blue glasses couldn't mean her. She was not a boy.

"Little boy," repeated Dr. 立ち往生させるing, more 厳しく still, shaking his forefinger ひどく at her, "come up here at once!"

Valancy arose as if hypnotised and walked up the aisle. She was too terrified to do anything else. What dreadful thing was going to happen to her? What had happened to her? Had she 現実に turned into a boy? She （機の）カム to a stop in 前線 of Dr. 立ち往生させるing. Dr. 立ち往生させるing shook his forefinger—such a long, knuckly forefinger—at her and said:

"Little boy, take off your hat."

Valancy took off her hat. She had a scrawny little pigtail hanging 負かす／撃墜する her 支援する, but Dr. 立ち往生させるing was shortsighted and did not perceive it.

"Little boy, go 支援する to your seat and always take off your hat in church. Remember!"

Valancy went 支援する to her seat carrying her hat like an automaton. Presently her mother （機の）カム in.

"Doss," said Mrs. Stirling, "what do you mean by taking off your hat? Put it on 即時に!"

Valancy put it on 即時に. She was 冷淡な with 恐れる lest Dr. 立ち往生させるing should すぐに 召喚する her up 前線 again. She would have to go, of course—it never occurred to her that one could disobey the rector—and the church was 十分な of people now. Oh, what would she do if that horrible, stabbing forefinger were shaken at her again before all those people? Valancy sat through the whole service in an agony of dread and was sick for a week afterwards. Nobody knew why—Mrs. Frederick again bemoaned herself of her delicate child.

Dr. 立ち往生させるing 設立する out his mistake and laughed over it to Valancy—who did not laugh. She never got over her dread of Dr. 立ち往生させるing. And now to be caught by him on the street corner, thinking such things!

Valancy got her John Foster 調書をとる／予約する—魔法 of Wings. "His 最新の—all about birds," said 行方不明になる Clarkson. She had almost decided that she would go home, instead of going to see Dr. Trent. Her courage had failed her. She was afraid of 感情を害する／違反するing Uncle James—afraid of 怒り／怒るing her mother—afraid of 直面するing gruff, shaggy-browed old Dr. Trent, who would probably tell her, as he had told Cousin Gladys, that her trouble was 完全に imaginary and that she only had it because she liked to have it. No, she would not go; she would get a 瓶／封じ込める of Redfern's Purple Pills instead. Redfern's Purple Pills were the 基準 薬／医学 of the Stirling 一族／派閥. Had they not cured Second Cousin Geraldine when five doctors had given her up? Valancy always felt very 懐疑的な 関心ing the virtues of the Purple Pills; but there might be something in them; and it was easier to take them than to 直面する Dr. Trent alone. She would ちらりと見ること over the magazines in the reading-room a few minutes and then go home.

Valancy tried to read a story, but it made her furious. On every page was a picture of the ヘロイン surrounded by adoring men. And here was she, Valancy Stirling, who could not get a 独房監禁 beau! Valancy slammed the magazine shut; she opened 魔法 of Wings. Her 注目する，もくろむs fell on the paragraph that changed her life.

"恐れる is the 初めの sin," wrote John Foster. "Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something. It is a 冷淡な, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with 恐れる; and it is of all things degrading."

Valancy shut 魔法 of Wings and stood up. She would go and see Dr. Trent.

CHAPTER VI

The ordeal was not so dreadful, after all. Dr. Trent was as gruff and abrupt as usual, but he did not tell her her 病気 was imaginary. After he had listened to her symptoms and asked a few questions and made a quick examination, he sat for a moment looking at her やめる intently. Valancy thought he looked as if he were sorry for her. She caught her breath for a moment. Was the trouble serious? Oh, it couldn't be, surely—it really hadn't bothered her much—only lately it had got a little worse.

Dr. Trent opened his mouth—but before he could speak the telephone at his 肘 rang はっきりと. He 選ぶd up the receiver. Valancy, watching him, saw his 直面する change suddenly as he listened, "'Lo—yes—yes—what?—yes—yes"—a 簡潔な／要約する interval—"My God!"

Dr. Trent dropped the receiver, dashed out of the room and upstairs without even a ちらりと見ること at Valancy. She heard him 急ぐing madly about 総計費, barking out a few 発言／述べるs to somebody—推定では his housekeeper. Then he （機の）カム 涙／ほころびing downstairs with a club 捕らえる、獲得する in his 手渡す, snatched his hat and coat from the rack, jerked open the street door and 急ぐd 負かす／撃墜する the street in the direction of the 駅／配置する.

Valancy sat alone in the little office, feeling more 絶対 foolish than she had ever felt before in her life. Foolish—and humiliated. So this was all that had come of her heroic 決意 to live up to John Foster and cast 恐れる aside. Not only was she a 失敗 as a 親族 and 非，不，無-existent as a sweetheart or friend, but she was not even of any importance as a 患者. Dr. Trent had forgotten her very presence in his excitement over whatever message had come by the telephone. She had 伸び（る）d nothing by ignoring Uncle James and 飛行機で行くing in the 直面する of family tradition.

For a moment she was afraid she was going to cry. It was all so—ridiculous. Then she heard Dr. Trent's housekeeper coming 負かす／撃墜する the stairs. Valancy rose and went to the office door.

"The doctor forgot all about me," she said with a 新たな展開d smile.

"井戸／弁護士席, that's too bad," said Mrs. Patterson sympathetically. "But it wasn't much wonder, poor man. That was a 電報電信 they 'phoned over from the Port. His son has been terribly 負傷させるd in an 自動車 事故 in Montreal. The doctor had just ten minutes to catch the train. I don't know what he'll do if anything happens to Ned—he's just bound up in the boy. You'll have to come again, 行方不明になる Stirling. I hope it's nothing serious."

"Oh, no, nothing serious," agreed Valancy. She felt a little いっそう少なく humiliated. It was no wonder poor Dr. Trent had forgotten her at such a moment. にもかかわらず, she felt very flat and discouraged as she went 負かす／撃墜する the street.

Valancy went home by the short-削減（する） of Lover's 小道／航路. She did not often go through Lover's 小道／航路—but it was getting 近づく supper-time and it would never do to be late. Lover's 小道／航路 負傷させる 支援する of the village, under 広大な／多数の／重要な elms and maples, and deserved its 指名する. It was hard to go there at any time and not find some canoodling couple—or young girls in pairs, 武器 intertwined, 真面目に talking over their secrets. Valancy didn't know which made her feel more self-conscious and uncomfortable.

This evening she 遭遇（する）d both. She met Connie Hale and Kate Bayley, in new pink organdy dresses with flowers stuck coquettishly in their glossy, 明らかにする hair. Valancy had never had a pink dress or worn flowers in her hair. Then she passed a young couple she didn't know, dandering along, oblivious to everything but themselves. The young man's arm was around the girl's waist やめる shamelessly. Valancy had never walked with a man's arm about her. She felt that she せねばならない be shocked—they might leave that sort of thing for the 審査 twilight, at least—but she wasn't shocked. In another flash of desperate, stark honesty she owned to herself that she was 単に envious. When she passed them she felt やめる sure they were laughing at her—pitying her—"there's that queer little old maid, Valancy Stirling. They say she never had a beau in her whole life"—Valancy 公正に／かなり ran to get out of Lover's 小道／航路. Never had she felt so utterly colourless and skinny and insignificant.

Just where Lover's 小道／航路 debouched on the street, an old car was parked. Valancy knew that car 井戸／弁護士席—by sound, at least—and everybody in Deerwood knew it. This was before the phrase "tin Lizzie" had come into 循環／発行部数—in Deerwood, at least; but if it had been known, this car was the tinniest of Lizzies—though it was not a Ford but an old Grey Slosson. Nothing more 乱打するd and disreputable could be imagined.

It was Barney Snaith's car and Barney himself was just 緊急発進するing up from under it, in 全体にわたるs plastered with mud. Valancy gave him a swift, furtive look as she hurried by. This was only the second time she had ever seen the 悪名高い Barney Snaith, though she had heard enough about him in the five years that he had been living "up 支援する" in Muskoka. The first time had been nearly a year ago, on the Muskoka road. He had been はうing out from under his car then, too, and he had given her a cheerful grin as she went by—a little, whimsical grin that gave him the look of an amused gnome. He didn't look bad—she didn't believe he was bad, in spite of the wild yarns that were always 存在 told of him. Of course he went 涙／ほころびing in that terrible old Grey Slosson through Deerwood at hours when all decent people were in bed—often with old "Roaring Abel," who made the night hideous with his howls—"both of them dead drunk, my dear." And every one knew that he was an escaped 罪人／有罪を宣告する and a defaulting bank clerk and a 殺害者 in hiding and an infidel and an 非合法の son of old Roaring Abel Gay and the father of Roaring Abel's 非合法の grandchild and a counterfeiter and a forger and a few other awful things. But still Valancy didn't believe he was bad. Nobody with a smile like that could be bad, no 事柄 what he had done.

It was that night the Prince of the Blue 城 changed from a 存在 of grim jaw and hair with a dash of premature grey to a rakish individual with overlong, tawny hair, dashed with red, dark-brown 注目する，もくろむs, and ears that stuck out just enough to give him an 警報 look but not enough to be called 飛行機で行くing jibs. But he still 保持するd something a little grim about the jaw.

Barney Snaith looked even more disreputable than usual just now. It was very evident that he hadn't shaved for days, and his 手渡すs and 武器, 明らかにする to the shoulders, were 黒人／ボイコット with grease. But he was whistling gleefully to himself and he seemed so happy that Valancy envied him. She envied him his light-heartedness and his irresponsibility and his mysterious little cabin up on an island in Lake Mistawis—even his rackety old Grey Slosson. Neither he nor his car had to be respectable and live up to traditions. When he 動揺させるd past her a few minutes later, bareheaded, leaning 支援する in his Lizzie at a rakish angle, his longish hair blowing in the 勝利，勝つd, a villainous-looking old 黒人／ボイコット 麻薬を吸う in his mouth, she envied him again. Men had the best of it, no 疑問 about that. This 無法者 was happy, whatever he was or wasn't. She, Valancy Stirling, respectable, 井戸／弁護士席-behaved to the last degree, was unhappy and had always been unhappy. So there you were.

Valancy was just in time for supper. The sun had clouded over, and a dismal, 霧雨ing rain was 落ちるing again. Cousin Stickles had the neuralgia. Valancy had to do the family darning and there was no time for 魔法 of Wings.

"Can't the darning wait till tomorrow?" she pleaded.

"Tomorrow will bring its own 義務s," said Mrs. Frederick inexorably.

Valancy darned all the evening and listened to Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles talking the eternal, niggling gossip of the 一族／派閥, as they knitted drearily at interminable 黒人／ボイコット stockings. They discussed Second Cousin Lilian's approaching wedding in all its bearings. On the whole, they 認可するd. Second Cousin Lilian was doing 井戸／弁護士席 for herself.

"Though she hasn't hurried," said Cousin Stickles. "She must be twenty-five."

"There have not—fortunately—been many old maids in our 関係," said Mrs. Frederick 激しく.

Valancy flinched. She had run the darning needle into her finger.

Third Cousin Aaron Gray had been scratched by a cat and had 血-毒（薬）ing in his finger. "Cats are most dangerous animals," said Mrs. Frederick. "I would never have a cat about the house."

She glared 意味ありげに at Valancy through her terrible glasses. Once, five years ago, Valancy had asked if she might have a cat. She had never referred to it since, but Mrs. Frederick still 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd her of harbouring the unlawful 願望（する） in her heart of hearts.

Once Valancy sneezed. Now, in the Stirling code, it was very bad form to sneeze in public.

"You can always repress a sneeze by 圧力（をかける）ing your finger on your upper lip" said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly.

Half-past nine o'clock and so, as Mr. Pepys would say, to bed. But First Cousin Stickles' neuralgic 支援する must be rubbed with Redfern's Liniment. Valancy did that. Valancy always had to do it. She hated the smell of Redfern's Liniment—she hated the smug, beaming, portly, be-whiskered, be-spectacled picture of Dr. Redfern on the 瓶／封じ込める. Her fingers smelled of the horrible stuff after she got into bed, in spite of all the scrubbing she gave them.

Valancy's day of 運命 had come and gone. She ended it as she had begun it, in 涙／ほころびs.

CHAPTER VII

There was a rosebush on the little Stirling lawn, growing beside the gate. It was called "Doss's rosebush." Cousin Georgiana had given it to Valancy five years ago and Valancy had 工場／植物d it joyfully. She loved roses. But—of course—the rosebush never bloomed. That was her luck. Valancy did everything she could think of and took the advice of everybody in the 一族／派閥, but still the rosebush would not bloom. It throve and grew luxuriantly, with 広大な／多数の／重要な leafy 支店s untouched of rust or spider; but not even a bud had ever appeared on it. Valancy, looking at it two days after her birthday, was filled with a sudden, 圧倒的な 憎悪 for it. The thing wouldn't bloom: very 井戸／弁護士席, then, she would 削減（する） it 負かす／撃墜する. She marched to the 道具-room in the barn for her garden knife and she went at the rosebush viciously. A few minutes later horrified Mrs. Frederick （機の）カム out to the verandah and beheld her daughter 削除するing insanely の中で the rosebush boughs. Half of them were already strewn on the walk. The bush looked sadly 取り去る／解体するd.

"Doss, what on earth are you doing? Have you gone crazy?"

"No," said Valancy. She meant to say it defiantly, but habit was too strong for her. She said it deprecatingly. "I—I just made up my mind to 削減（する） this bush 負かす／撃墜する. It is no good. It never blooms—never will bloom."

"That is no 推論する／理由 for destroying it," said Mrs. Frederick 厳しく. "It was a beautiful bush and やめる ornamental. You have made a sorry-looking thing of it."

"Rose trees should bloom," said Valancy a little obstinately.

"Don't argue with me, Doss. （疑いを）晴らす up that mess and leave the bush alone. I don't know what Georgiana will say when she sees how you have 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセスd it to pieces. Really, I'm surprised at you. And to do it without 協議するing me!"

"The bush is 地雷," muttered Valancy.

"What's that? What did you say, Doss?"

"I only said the bush was 地雷," repeated Valancy 謙虚に.

Mrs. Frederick turned without a word and marched 支援する into the house. The mischief was done now. Valancy knew she had 感情を害する／違反するd her mother 深く，強烈に and would not be spoken to or noticed in any way for two or three days. Cousin Stickles would see to Valancy's bringing-up but Mrs. Frederick would 保存する the stony silence of 乱暴／暴力を加えるd majesty.

Valancy sighed and put away her garden knife, hanging it 正確に on its 正確な nail in the 道具-shop. She （疑いを）晴らすd away the several 支店s and swept up the leaves. Her lips twitched as she looked at the straggling bush. It had an 半端物 resemblance to its shaken, scrawny 寄贈者, little Cousin Georgiana herself.

"I certainly have made an awful-looking thing of it," thought Valancy.

But she did not feel repentant—only sorry she had 感情を害する／違反するd her mother. Things would be so uncomfortable until she was forgiven. Mrs. Frederick was one of those women who can make their 怒り／怒る felt all over a house. 塀で囲むs and doors are no 保護 from it.

"You'd better go uptown and git the mail," said Cousin Stickles, when Valancy went in. "I can't go—I feel all sorter peaky and piny this spring. I want you to stop at the drugstore and git me a 瓶／封じ込める of Redfern's 血 Bitters. There's nothing like Redfern's Bitters for building a 団体／死体 up. Cousin James says the Purple Pills are the best, but I know better. My poor dear husband took Redfern's Bitters 権利 up to the day he died. Don't let them 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 you more'n ninety cents. I 肉親，親類 git it for that at the Port. And what have you been 説 to your poor mother? Do you ever stop to think, Doss, that you 肉親，親類 only have one mother?"

"One is enough for me," thought Valancy undutifully, as she went uptown.

She got Cousin Stickles' 瓶／封じ込める of bitters and then she went to the 地位，任命する-office and asked for her mail at the General 配達／演説／出産. Her mother did not have a box. They got too little mail to bother with it. Valancy did not 推定する／予想する any mail, except the Christian Times, which was the only paper they took. They hardly ever got any letters. But Valancy rather liked to stand in the office and watch Mr. Carewe, the grey-bearded, Santa-Clausy old clerk, 手渡すing out letters to the lucky people who did get them. He did it with such a detached, impersonal, Jove-like 空気／公表する, as if it did not 事柄 in the least to him what supernal joys or 粉々にするing horrors might be in those letters for the people to whom they were 演説（する）／住所d. Letters had a fascination for Valancy, perhaps because she so seldom got any. In her Blue 城 exciting epistles, bound with silk and 調印（する）d with crimson, were always 存在 brought to her by pages in livery of gold and blue, but in real life her only letters were 時折の perfunctory 公式文書，認めるs from 親族s or an advertising circular.

その結果 she was immensely surprised when Mr. Carewe, looking even more Jovian than usual, poked a letter out to her. Yes, it was 演説（する）／住所d to her plainly, in a 猛烈な／残忍な, 黒人／ボイコット 手渡す: "行方不明になる Valancy Stirling, Elm Street, Deerwood"—and the postmark was Montreal. Valancy 選ぶd it up with a little 生き返らせる of her breath. Montreal! It must be from Doctor Trent. He had remembered her, after all.

Valancy met Uncle Benjamin coming in as she was going out and was glad the letter was 安全に in her 捕らえる、獲得する.

"What," said Uncle Benjamin, "is the difference between a donkey and a postage-stamp?"

"I don't know. What?" answered Valancy dutifully.

"One you lick with a stick and the other you stick with a lick. Ha, ha!"

Uncle Benjamin passed in, tremendously pleased with himself.

Cousin Stickles pounced on the Times when Valancy got home, but it did not occur to her to ask if there were any letters. Mrs. Frederick would have asked it, but Mrs. Frederick's lips at 現在の were 調印（する）d. Valancy was glad of this. If her mother had asked if there were any letters Valancy would have had to 収容する／認める there was. Then she would have had to let her mother and Cousin Stickles read the letter and all would be discovered.

Her heart 行為／法令／行動するd strangely on the way upstairs, and she sat 負かす／撃墜する by her window for a few minutes before 開始 her letter. She felt very 有罪の and deceitful. She had never before kept a letter secret from her mother. Every letter she had ever written or received had been read by Mrs. Frederick. That had never 事柄d. Valancy had never had anything to hide. But this did 事柄. She could not have any one see this letter. But her fingers trembled with a consciousness of wickedness and unfilial 行為／行う as she opened it—trembled a little, too, perhaps, with 逮捕. She felt やめる sure there was nothing 本気で wrong with her heart but—one never knew.

Dr. Trent's letter was like himself—blunt, abrupt, concise, wasting no words. Dr. Trent never （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 about the bush. "Dear 行方不明になる 英貨の／純銀の"—and then a page of 黒人／ボイコット, 肯定的な 令状ing. Valancy seemed to read it at a ちらりと見ること; she dropped it on her （競技場の）トラック一周, her 直面する ghost-white.

Dr. Trent told her that she had a very dangerous and 致命的な form of heart 病気—angina pectoris—evidently 複雑にするd with an aneurism—whatever that was—and in the last 行う／開催する／段階s. He said, without mincing 事柄s, that nothing could be done for her. If she took 広大な／多数の／重要な care of herself she might live a year—but she might also die at any moment—Dr. Trent never troubled himself about euphemisms. She must be careful to 避ける all excitement and all 厳しい muscular 成果／努力s. She must eat and drink moderately, she must never run, she must go upstairs and 上りの／困難な with 広大な／多数の／重要な care. Any sudden 揺さぶる or shock might be 致命的な. She was to get the prescription he enclosed filled and carry it with her always, taking a dose whenever her attacks （機の）カム on. And he was hers truly, H. B. Trent.

Valancy sat for a long while by her window. Outside was a world 溺死するd in the light of a spring afternoon—skies entrancingly blue, 勝利，勝つd perfumed and 解放する／自由な, lovely, soft, blue 煙霧s at the end of every street. Over at the 鉄道 駅／配置する a group of young girls was waiting for a train; she heard their gay laughter as they chattered and joked. The train roared in and roared out again. But 非，不，無 of these things had any reality. Nothing had any reality except the fact that she had only another year to live.

When she was tired of sitting at the window she went over and lay 負かす／撃墜する on her bed, 星／主役にするing at the 割れ目d, discoloured 天井. The curious numbness that follows on a staggering blow 所有するd her. She did not feel anything except a boundless surprise and incredulity—behind which was the 有罪の判決 that Dr. Trent knew his 商売／仕事 and that she, Valancy Stirling, who had never lived, was about to die.

When the gong rang for supper Valancy got up and went downstairs mechanically, from 軍隊 of habit. She wondered that she had been let alone so long. But of course her mother would not 支払う／賃金 any attention to her just now. Valancy was thankful for this. She thought the quarrel over the rose-bush had been really, as Mrs. Frederick herself might have said, Providential. She could not eat anything, but both Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought this was because she was deservedly unhappy over her mother's 態度, and her 欠如（する） of appetite was not commented on. Valancy 軍隊d herself to swallow a cup of tea and then sat and watched the others eat, with an 半端物 feeling that years had passed since she had sat with them at the dinner-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. She 設立する herself smiling inwardly to think what a commotion she could make if she chose. Let her 単に tell them what was in Dr. Trent's letter and there would be as much fuss made as if—Valancy thought 激しく—they really cared two straws about her.

"Dr. Trent's housekeeper got word from him today," said Cousin Stickles, so suddenly that Valancy jumped guiltily. Was there anything in thought waves? "Mrs. Judd was talking to her uptown. They think his son will 回復する, but Dr. Trent wrote that if he did he was going to take him abroad as soon as he was able to travel and wouldn't be 支援する here for a year at least."

"That will not 事柄 much to us," said Mrs. Frederick majestically. "He is not our doctor. I would not"—here she looked or seemed to look accusingly 権利 through Valancy—"have him to doctor a sick cat."

"May I go upstairs and 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する?" said Valancy faintly. "I—I have a 頭痛."

"What has given you a 頭痛?" asked Cousin Stickles, since Mrs. Frederick would not. The question has to be asked. Valancy could not be 許すd to have 頭痛s without 干渉，妨害.

"You ain't in the habit of having 頭痛s. I hope you're not taking the mumps. Here, try a spoonful of vinegar."

"Piffle!" said Valancy rudely, getting up from the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. She did not care just then if she were rude. She had had to be so polite all her life.

If it had been possible for Cousin Stickles to turn pale she would have. As it was not, she turned yellower.

"Are you sure you ain't feverish, Doss? You sound like it. You go and get 権利 into bed," said Cousin Stickles, 完全に alarmed, "and I'll come up and rub your forehead and the 支援する of your neck with Redfern's Liniment."

Valancy had reached the door, but she turned. "I won't be rubbed with Redfern's Liniment!" she said.

Cousin Stickles 星／主役にするd and gasped. "What—what do you mean?"

"I said I wouldn't be rubbed with Redfern's Liniment," repeated Valancy. "Horrid, sticky stuff! And it has the vilest smell of any liniment I ever saw. It's no good. I want to be left alone, that's all."

Valancy went out, leaving Cousin Stickles aghast.

"She's feverish—she must be feverish," ejaculated Cousin Stickles.

Mrs. Frederick went on eating her supper. It did not 事柄 whether Valancy was or was not feverish. Valancy had been 有罪の of impertinence to her.

CHAPTER VIII

Valancy did not sleep that night. She lay awake all through the long dark, hours—thinking—thinking. She made a 発見 that surprised her: she, who had been afraid of almost everything in life, was not afraid of death. It did not seem in the least terrible to her. And she need not now be afraid of anything else. Why had she been afraid of things? Because of life. Afraid of Uncle Benjamin because of the menace of poverty in old age. But now she would never be old—neglected—許容するd. Afraid of 存在 an old maid all her life. But now she would not be an old maid very long. Afraid of 感情を害する／違反するing her mother and her 一族／派閥 because she had to live with and の中で them and couldn't live peaceably if she didn't give in to them. But now she hadn't. Valancy felt a curious freedom.

But she was still horribly afraid of one thing—the fuss the whole jamfry of them would make when she told them. Valancy shuddered at the thought of it. She couldn't 耐える it. Oh, she knew so 井戸／弁護士席 how it would be. First there would be indignation—yes, indignation on the part of Uncle James because she had gone to a doctor—any doctor—without 協議するing HIM. Indignation on the part of her mother for 存在 so sly and deceitful—"to your own mother, Doss." Indignation on the part of the whole 一族／派閥 because she had not gone to Dr. 沼.

Then would come the solicitude. She would be taken to Dr. 沼, and when Dr. 沼 確認するd Dr. Trent's diagnosis she would be taken to specialists in Toronto and Montreal. Uncle Benjamin would foot the 法案 with a splendid gesture of munificence in thus 補助装置ing the 未亡人 and 孤児, and talk forever after of the shocking 料金s specialists 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金d for looking wise and 説 they couldn't do anything. And when the specialists could do nothing for her Uncle James would 主張する on her taking Purple Pills—"I've known them to 影響 a cure when all the doctors had given up"—and her mother would 主張する on Redfern's 血 Bitters, and Cousin Stickles would 主張する on rubbing her over the heart every night with Redfern's Liniment on the grounds that it might do good and couldn't do 害（を与える）; and everybody else would have some pet 麻薬 for her to take. Dr. 立ち往生させるing would come to her and say solemnly, "You are very ill. Are you 用意が出来ている for what may be before you?"—almost as if he were going to shake his forefinger at her, the forefinger that had not grown any shorter or いっそう少なく knobbly with age. And she would be watched and checked like a baby and never let do anything or go anywhere alone. Perhaps she would not even be 許すd to sleep alone lest she die in her sleep. Cousin Stickles or her mother would 主張する on 株ing her room and bed. Yes, undoubtedly they would.

It was this last thought that really decided Valancy. She could not put up with it and she wouldn't. As the clock in the hall below struck twelve Valancy suddenly and definitely made up her mind that she would not tell anybody. She had always been told, ever since she could remember, that she must hide her feelings. "It is not ladylike to have feelings," Cousin Stickles had once told her disapprovingly. 井戸／弁護士席, she would hide them with a vengeance.

But though she was not afraid of death she was not indifferent to it. She 設立する that she resented it; it was not fair that she should have to die when she had never lived. 反乱 炎上d up in her soul as the dark hours passed by—not because she had no 未来 but because she had no past.

"I'm poor—I'm ugly—I'm a 失敗—and I'm 近づく death," she thought. She could see her own obituary notice in the Deerwood 週刊誌 Times, copied into the Port Lawrence 定期刊行物. "A 深い gloom was cast over Deerwood, etc., etc."—"leaves a large circle of friends to 嘆く／悼む, etc., etc., etc."—lies, all lies. Gloom, forsooth! Nobody would 行方不明になる her. Her death would not 事柄 a straw to anybody. Not even her mother loved her—her mother who had been so disappointed that she was not a boy—or at least, a pretty girl.

Valancy reviewed her whole life between midnight and the 早期に spring 夜明け. It was a very 淡褐色 存在, but here and there an 出来事/事件 ぼんやり現れるd out with a significance out of all 割合 to its real importance. These 出来事/事件s were all unpleasant in one way or another. Nothing really pleasant had every happened to Valancy.

"I've never had one wholly happy hour in my life—not one," she thought. "I've just been a colourless nonentity. I remember reading somewhere once that there is an hour in which a woman might be happy all her life if she could but find it. I've never 設立する my hour—never, never. And I never will now. If I could only have had that hour I'd be willing to die."

Those 重要な 出来事/事件s kept bobbing up in her mind like unbidden ghosts, without any sequence of time or place. For instance, that time when, at sixteen, she had blued a tubful of 着せる／賦与するs too 深く，強烈に. And the time when, at eight, she had "stolen" some raspberry jam from Aunt Wellington's pantry. Valancy never heard the last of those two misdemeanours. At almost every 一族／派閥 集会 they were raked up against her as jokes. Uncle Benjamin hardly ever 行方不明になるd re-telling the raspberry jam 出来事/事件—he had been the one to catch her, her 直面する all stained and streaked.

"I have really done so few bad things that they have to keep harping on the old ones," thought Valancy. "Why, I've never even had a quarrel with any one. I 港／避難所't an enemy. What a spineless thing I must be not to have even one enemy!"

There was that 出来事/事件 of the dust-pile at school when she was seven. Valancy always 解任するd it when Dr. 立ち往生させるing referred to the text, "To him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath." Other people might puzzle over that text but it never puzzled Valancy. The whole 関係 between herself and Olive, dating from the day of the dust-pile, was a commentary on it.

She had been going to school a year, but Olive, who was a year younger, had just begun and had about her all the glamour of "a new girl" and an exceedingly pretty girl at that. It was at 休会 and all the girls, big and little, were out on the road in 前線 of the school making dust-piles. The 目的（とする） of each girl was to have the biggest pile. Valancy was good at making dust-piles—there was an art in it—and she had secret hopes of 主要な. But Olive, working off by herself, was suddenly discovered to have a larger dust-pile than anybody. Valancy felt no jealousy. Her dust-pile was やめる big enough to please her. Then one of the older girls had an inspiration.

"Let's put all our dust on Olive's pile and make a tremendous one," she exclaimed.

A frenzy seemed to 掴む the girls. They 急襲するd 負かす／撃墜する on the dust-piles with pails and shovels and in a few seconds Olive's pile was a veritable pyramid. In vain Valancy, with scrawny, outstretched little 武器, tried to 保護する hers. She was ruthlessly swept aside, her dust-pile scooped up and 注ぐd on Olive's. Valancy turned away resolutely and began building another dust-pile. Again a bigger girl pounced on it. Valancy stood before it, 紅潮／摘発するd, indignant, 武器 outspread.

"Don't take it," she pleaded. "Please don't take it."

"But why?" 需要・要求するd the older girl. "Why won't you help to build Olives bigger?"

"I want my own little dust-pile," said Valancy piteously.

Her 嘆願 went unheeded. While she argued with one girl another 捨てるd up her dust-pile. Valancy turned away, her heart swelling, her 注目する，もくろむs 十分な of 涙／ほころびs.

"Jealous—you're jealous!" said the girls mockingly.

"You were very selfish," said her mother coldly, when Valancy told her about it at night. That was the first and last time Valancy had ever taken any of her troubles to her mother.

Valancy was neither jealous nor selfish. It was only that she 手配中の，お尋ね者 a dust-pile of her own—small or big 事柄d not. A team of horses （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する the street—Olive's dust pile was scattered over the roadway—the bell rang—the girls 軍隊／機動隊d into school and had forgotten the whole 事件／事情／状勢 before they reached their seats. Valancy never forgot it. To this day she resented it in her secret soul. But was it not symbolical of her life?

"I've never been able to have my own dust-pile," thought Valancy.

The enormous red moon she had seen rising 権利 at the end of the street one autumn evening of her sixth year. She had been sick and 冷淡な with the awful, uncanny horror of it. So 近づく to her. So big. She had run in trembling to her mother and her mother had laughed at her. She had gone to bed and hidden her 直面する under the 着せる／賦与するs in terror lest she might look at the window and see that horrible moon glaring in at her through it.

The boy who had tried to kiss her at a party when she was fifteen. She had not let him—she had 避けるd him and run. He was the only boy who had ever tried to kiss her. Now, fourteen years later, Valancy 設立する herself wishing that she had let him.

The time she had been made to apologise to Olive for something she hadn't done. Olive had said that Valancy had 押し進めるd her into the mud and spoiled her new shoes on 目的. Valancy knew she hadn't. It had been an 事故—and even that wasn't her fault—but nobody would believe her. She had to apologise—and kiss Olive to "（不足などを）補う." The 不正 of it 燃やすd in her soul tonight.

That summer when Olive had the most beautiful hat, trimmed with creamy yellow 逮捕する, with a 花冠 of red roses and little 略章 屈服するs under the chin. Valancy had 手配中の，お尋ね者 a hat like that more than she had ever 手配中の，お尋ね者 anything. She pleaded for one and had been laughed at—all summer she had to wear a horrid little brown sailor with elastic that 削減（する） behind her ears. 非，不，無 of the girls would go around with her because she was so shabby—nobody but Olive. People had thought Olive so 甘い and unselfish.

"I was an excellent 失敗させる／負かす for her," thought Valancy. "Even then she knew that."

Valancy had tried to 勝利，勝つ a prize for 出席 in Sunday School once. But Olive won it. There were so many Sundays Valancy had to stay home because she had 冷淡なs. She had once tried to "say a piece" in school one Friday afternoon and had broken 負かす／撃墜する in it. Olive was a good reciter and never got stuck.

The night she had spent in Port Lawrence with Aunt Isabel when she was ten. Byron Stirling was there; from Montreal, twelve years old, conceited, clever. At family 祈りs in the morning Byron had reached across and given Valancy's thin arm such a savage pinch that she 叫び声をあげるd out with 苦痛. After 祈りs were over she was 召喚するd to Aunt Isabel's 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 of judgment. But when she said Byron had pinched her Byron 否定するd it. He said she cried out because the kitten scratched her. He said she had put the kitten up on her 議長，司会を務める and was playing with it when she should have been listening to Uncle David's 祈り. He was believed. In the Stirling 一族／派閥 the boys were always believed before the girls. Valancy was sent home in 不名誉 because of her 越えるing bad 行為 during family 祈りs and she was not asked to Aunt Isabel's again for many moons.

The time Cousin Betty Stirling was married. Somehow Valancy got 勝利，勝つd of the fact that Betty was going to ask her to be one of her bridesmaids. Valancy was 内密に uplifted. It would be a delightful thing to be a bridesmaid. And of course she would have to have a new dress for it—a pretty new dress—a pink dress. Betty 手配中の，お尋ね者 her bridesmaids to dress in pink.

But Betty had never asked her, after all. Valancy couldn't guess why, but long after her secret 涙／ほころびs of 失望 had been 乾燥した，日照りのd Olive told her. Betty, after much 協議 and reflection, had decided that Valancy was too insignificant—she would "spoil the 影響." That was nine years ago. But tonight Valancy caught her breath with the old 苦痛 and sting of it.

That day in her eleventh year when her mother had badgered her into 自白するing something she had never done. Valancy had 否定するd it for a long time but 結局 for peace' sake she had given in and pleaded 有罪の. Mrs. Frederick was always making people 嘘（をつく） by 押し進めるing them into 状況／情勢s where they had to 嘘（をつく）. Then her mother had made her ひさまづく 負かす／撃墜する on parlour 床に打ち倒す, between herself and Cousin Stickles, and say, "O God, please 許す me for not speaking the truth." Valancy had said it, but as she rose from her 膝s she muttered, "But O God, you know I did speak the truth." Valancy had not then heard of Galileo but her 運命／宿命 was 類似の to his. She was punished just as 厳しく as if she hadn't 自白するd and prayed.

The winter she went to dancing-school. Uncle James had 法令d she should go and had paid for her lessons. How she had looked 今後 to it! And how she had hated it! She had never had a voluntary partner. The teacher always had to tell some boy to dance with her, and 一般に he had been sulky about it. Yet Valancy was a good ダンサー, as light on her feet as thistledown. Olive, who never 欠如（する）d eager partners, was 激しい.

The 事件／事情／状勢 of the button-string, when she was ten. All the girls in school had button-strings. Olive had a very long one with a 広大な／多数の／重要な many beautiful buttons. Valancy had one. Most of the buttons on it were very commonplace, but she had six beauties that had come off Grandmother Stirling's wedding-gown—sparkling buttons of gold and glass, much more beautiful than any Olive had. Their 所有／入手 conferred a 確かな distinction on Valancy. She knew every little girl in school envied her the 排除的 所有／入手 of those beautiful buttons. When Olive saw them on the button-string she had looked at them 辛うじて but said nothing—then. The next day Aunt Wellington had come to Elm Street and told Mrs. Frederick that she thought Olive should have some of those buttons—Grandmother Stirling was just as much Wellington's mother as Frederick's. Mrs. Frederick had agreed amiably. She could not afford to 落ちる out with Aunt Wellington. Moreover, the 事柄 was of no importance whatever. Aunt Wellington carried off four of the buttons, generously leaving two for Valancy. Valancy had torn these from her string and flung them on the 床に打ち倒す—she had not yet learned that it was unladylike to have feelings—and had been sent supperless to bed for the 展示.

The night of Margaret Blunt's party. She had made such pathetic 成果／努力s to be pretty that night. 略奪する Walker was to be there; and two nights before, on the moonlit verandah of Uncle Herbert's cottage at Mistawis, 略奪する had really seemed attracted to her. At Margaret's party 略奪する never even asked her to dance—did not notice her at all. She was a wallflower, as usual. That, of course, was years ago. People in Deerwood had long since given up 招待するing Valancy to dances. But to Valancy its humiliation and 失望 were of the other day. Her 直面する 燃やすd in the 不明瞭 as she 解任するd herself, sitting there with her pitifully crimped, thin hair and the cheeks she had pinched for an hour before coming, in an 成果／努力 to make them red. All that （機の）カム of it was a wild story that Valancy Stirling was 紅d at Margaret Blunt's party. In those days in Deerwood that was enough to 難破させる your character forever. It did not 難破させる Valancy's, or even 損失 it. People knew she couldn't be 急速な／放蕩な if she tried. They only laughed at her.

"I've had nothing but a second-手渡す 存在," decided Valancy. "All the 広大な／多数の／重要な emotions of life have passed me by. I've never even had a grief. And have I ever really loved anybody? Do I really love Mother? No, I don't. That's the truth, whether it is disgraceful or not. I don't love her—I've never loved her. What's worse, I don't even like her. So I don't know anything about any 肉親，親類d of love. My life has been empty—empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!" Valancy ejaculated the last "nothing" aloud passionately. Then she moaned and stopped thinking about anything for a while. One of her attacks of 苦痛 had come on.

When it was over something had happened to Valancy—perhaps the culmination of the 過程 that had been going on in her mind ever since she had read Dr. Trent's letter. It was three o'clock in the morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But いつかs it 始める，決めるs us 解放する／自由な.

"I've been trying to please other people all my life and failed," she said. "After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything again. I've breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and 回避s all my life. What a 高級な it will be to tell the truth! I may not be able to do much that I want to do but I won't do another thing that I don't want to do. Mother can pout for weeks—I shan't worry over it. 'Despair is a 解放する／自由な man—hope is a slave.'"

Valancy got up and dressed, with a 深くするing of that curious sense of freedom. When she had finished with her hair she opened the window and 投げつけるd the jar of potpourri over into the next lot. It 粉砕するd gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop.

"I'm sick of fragrance of dead things," said Valancy.

CHAPTER IX

Uncle Herbert and Aunt Alberta's silver wedding was delicately referred to の中で the Stirlings during the に引き続いて weeks as "the time we first noticed poor Valancy was—a little—you understand?"

Not for words would any of the Stirlings have said out and out at first that Valancy had gone mildly insane or even that her mind was わずかに deranged. Uncle Benjamin was considered to have gone 完全に too far when he had ejaculated, "She's dippy—I tell you, she's dippy," and was only excused because of the outrageousness of Valancy's 行為／行う at the aforsaid wedding dinner.

But Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles had noticed a few things that made them uneasy before the dinner. It had begun with the rosebush, of course; and Valancy never was really "やめる 権利" again. She did not seem to worry in the least over the fact that her mother was not speaking to her. You would never suppose she noticed it at all. She had きっぱりと 辞退するd to take either Purple Pills or Redfern's Bitters. She had 発表するd coolly that she did not ーするつもりである to answer to the 指名する of "Doss" any longer. She had told Cousin Stickles that she wished she would give up wearing that brooch with Cousin Artemas Stickles' hair in it. She had moved her bed in her room to the opposite corner. She had read 魔法 of Wings Sunday afternoon. When Cousin Stickles had rebuked her Valancy had said indifferently, "Oh, I forgot it was Sunday"—and had gone on reading it.

Cousin Stickles had seen a terrible thing—she had caught Valancy 事情に応じて変わる 負かす／撃墜する the bannister. Cousin Stickles did not tell Mrs. Frederick this—poor Amelia was worried enough as it was. But it was Valancy's 告示 on Saturday night that she was not going to go to the Anglican church any more that broke through Mrs. Frederick's stony silence.

"Not going to church any more! Doss, have you 絶対 taken leave—"

"Oh, I'm going to church," said Valancy airily. "I'm going to the Presbyterian church. But to the Anglican church I will not go."

This was even worse. Mrs. Frederick had 頼みの綱 to 涙／ほころびs, having 設立する 乱暴／暴力を加えるd majesty had 中止するd to be 効果的な.

"What have you got against the Anglican church?" she sobbed.

"Nothing—only just that you've always made me go there. If you'd made me go to the Presbyterian church I'd want to go to the Anglican."

"Is that a nice thing to say to your mother? Oh, how true it is that it is 詐欺師 than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child."

"Is that a nice thing to say to your daughter?" said unrepentant Valancy.

So Valancy's behaviour at the silver wedding was not やめる the surprise to Mrs. Frederick and Christine Stickles that it was to the 残り／休憩（する）. They were doubtful about the 知恵 of taking her, but 結論するd it would "make talk" if they didn't. Perhaps she would behave herself, and so far no 部外者 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd there was anything queer about her. By a special mercy of Providence it had 注ぐd 激流s Sunday morning, so Valancy had not carried out her hideous 脅し of going to the Presbyterian church.

Valancy would not have cared in the least if they had left her at home. These family 祝賀s were all hopelessly dull. But the Stirlings always celebrated everything. It was a long-設立するd custom. Even Mrs. Frederick gave a dinner party on her wedding 周年記念日 and Cousin Stickles had friends in to supper on her birthday. Valancy hated these entertainments because they had to pinch and save and contrive for weeks afterwards to 支払う／賃金 for them. But she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go to the silver wedding. It would 傷つける Uncle Herbert's feelings if she stayed away, and she rather liked Uncle Herbert. Besides, she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to look over all her 親族s from her new angle. It would be an excellent place to make public her 宣言 of independence if occasion 申し込む／申し出d.

"Put on your brown silk dress," said Mrs. Stirling.

As if there were anything else to put on! Valancy had only the one festive dress—that snuffy-brown silk Aunt Isabel had given her. Aunt Isabel had 法令d that Valancy should never wear colours. They did not become her. When she was young they 許すd her to wear white, but that had been tacitly dropped for some years. Valancy put on the brown silk. It had a high collar and long sleeves. She had never had a dress with low neck and 肘 sleeves, although they had been worn, even in Deerwood, for over a year. But she did not do her hair pompadour. She knotted it on her neck and pulled it out over her ears. She thought it became her—only the little knot was so absurdly small. Mrs. Frederick resented the hair but decided it was wisest to say nothing on the eve of the party. It was so important that Valancy should be kept in good humour, if possible, until it was over. Mrs. Frederick did not 反映する that this was the first time in her life that she had thought it necessary to consider Valancy's humours. But then Valancy had never been "queer" before.

On their way to Uncle Herbert's—Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles walking in 前線, Valancy trotting meekly along behind—Roaring Abel drove past them. Drunk as usual but not in the roaring 行う／開催する／段階. Just drunk enough to be 過度に polite. He raised his disreputable old tartan cap with the 空気／公表する of a 君主 saluting his 支配するs and swept them a grand 屈服する, Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles dared not 削減（する） Roaring Abel altogether. He was the only person in Deerwood who could be got to do 半端物 職業s of carpentering and 修理ing when they needed to be done, so it would not do to 感情を害する／違反する him. But they 答える／応じるd with only the stiffest, slightest of 屈服するs. Roaring Abel must be kept in his place.

Valancy, behind them, did a thing they were fortunately spared seeing. She smiled gaily and waved her 手渡す to Roaring Abel. Why not? She had always liked the old sinner. He was such a jolly, picturesque, unashamed reprobate and stood out against the 淡褐色 respectability of Deerwood and its customs like a 炎上-red 旗 of 反乱 and 抗議する. Only a few nights ago Abel had gone through Deerwood in the 少しの sma's, shouting 誓いs at the 最高の，を越す of his stentorian 発言する／表明する which could be heard for miles, and 攻撃するing his horse into a furious gallop as he tore along prim, proper Elm Street.

"Yelling and blaspheming like a fiend," shuddered Cousin Stickles at the breakfast-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

"I cannot understand why the judgment of the Lord has not fallen upon that man long ere this," said Mrs. Frederick petulantly, as if she thought Providence was very dilatory and せねばならない have a gentle 思い出の品.

"He'll be 選ぶd up dead some morning—he'll 落ちる under his horse's hoofs and be trampled to death," said Cousin Stickles reassuringly.

Valancy had said nothing, of course; but she wondered to herself if Roaring Abel's 定期刊行物 sprees were not his futile 抗議する against the poverty and drudgery and monotony of his 存在. She went on dream sprees in her Blue 城. Roaring Abel, having no imagination, could not do that. His escapes from reality had to be 固める／コンクリート. So she waved at him today with a sudden fellow feeling, and Roaring Abel, not too drunk to be astonished, nearly fell off his seat in his amazement.

By this time they had reached Maple Avenue and Uncle Herbert's house, a large, pretentious structure peppered with meaningless bay windows and excrescent porches. A house that always looked like a stupid, 繁栄する, self-満足させるd man with warts on his 直面する.

"A house like that," said Valancy solemnly, "is a blasphemy."

Mrs. Frederick was shaken to her soul. What had Valancy said? Was it profane? Or only just queer? Mrs. Frederick took off her hat in Aunt Alberta's spare-room with trembling 手渡すs. She made one more feeble 試みる／企てる to 回避する 災害. She held Valancy 支援する on the 上陸 as Cousin Stickles went downstairs.

"Won't you try to remember you're a lady?" she pleaded.

"Oh, if there were only any hope of 存在 able to forget it!" said Valancy wearily.

Mrs. Frederick felt that she had not deserved this from Providence.

CHAPTER X

"Bless this food to our use and consecrate our lives to Thy service," said Uncle Herbert briskly.

Aunt Wellington frowned. She always considered Herbert's graces 完全に too short and "flippant." A grace, to be a grace in Aunt Wellington's 注目する，もくろむs, had to be at least three minutes long and uttered in an unearthly トン, between a groan and a 詠唱する. As a 抗議する she kept her 長，率いる bent a perceptible time after all the 残り／休憩（する） had been 解除するd. When she permitted herself to sit upright she 設立する Valancy looking at her. Ever afterwards Aunt Wellington averred that she had known from that moment that there was something wrong with Valancy. In those queer, slanted 注目する，もくろむs of hers—"we should always have known she was not 完全に 権利 with 注目する，もくろむs like that"—there was an 半端物 gleam of mockery and amusement—as if Valancy were laughing at her. Such a thing was 考えられない, of course. Aunt Wellington at once 中止するd to think it.

Valancy was enjoying herself. She had never enjoyed herself at a "family 再会" before. In social 機能（する）／行事s, as in childish games, she had only "filled in." Her 一族／派閥 had always considered her very dull. She had no parlour tricks. And she had been in the habit of taking 避難 from the 退屈 of family parties in her Blue 城, which resulted in an absent-mindedness that 増加するd her 評判 for dullness and vacuity.

"She has no social presence whatever," Aunt Wellington had 法令d once and for all. Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb in their presence 単に because she was afraid of them. Now she was no longer afraid of them. The shackles had been stricken off her soul. She was やめる 用意が出来ている to talk if occasion 申し込む／申し出d. 一方／合間 she was giving herself such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before. She let herself go with a wild, inner exultation, as Uncle Herbert carved the turkey. Uncle Herbert gave Valancy a second look that day. 存在 a man, he didn't know what she had done to her hair, but he thought surprisedly that Doss was not such a bad-looking girl, after all; and he put an extra piece of white meat on her plate.

"What herb is most injurious to a young lady's beauty?" propounded Uncle Benjamin by way of starting conversation—"緩和するing things up a bit," as he would have said.

Valancy, whose 義務 it was to say, "What?" did not say it. Nobody else said it, so Uncle Benjamin, after an expectant pause, had to answer, "Thyme," and felt that his riddle had fallen flat. He looked resentfully at Valancy, who had never failed him before, but Valancy did not seem even to be aware of him. She was gazing around the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, 診察するing relentlessly every one in this depressing 議会 of sensible people and watching their little squirms with a detached, amused smile.

So these were the people she had always held in reverence and 恐れる. She seemed to see them with new 注目する，もくろむs.

Big, 有能な, patronising, voluble Aunt Mildred, who thought herself the cleverest woman in the 一族／派閥, her husband a little lower than the angels and her children wonders. Had not her son, Howard, been all through teething at eleven months? And could she not tell you the best way to do everything, from cooking mushrooms to 選ぶing up a snake? What a bore she was! What ugly moles she had on her 直面する!

Cousin Gladys, who was always 賞賛するing her son, who had died young, and always fighting with her living one. She had neuritis—or what she called neuritis. It jumped about from one part of her 団体／死体 to another. It was a convenient thing. If anybody 手配中の，お尋ね者 her to go somewhere she didn't want to go she had neuritis in her 脚s. And always if any mental 成果／努力 was 要求するd she could have neuritis in her 長，率いる. You can't think with neuritis in your 長，率いる, my dear.

"What an old humbug you are!" thought Valancy impiously.

Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins. Aunt Isabel was the critic of the 一族／派閥. She had always gone about squashing people flat. More members of it than Valancy were afraid of her. She had, it was 譲歩するd, a biting tongue.

"I wonder what would happen to your 直面する if you ever smiled," 推測するd Valancy, unblushingly.

Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, with her 広大な／多数の／重要な, pale, expressionless 注目する，もくろむs, who was 公式文書，認めるd for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing else. So afraid of 説 something indiscreet that she never said anything 価値（がある） listening to. So proper that she blushed when she saw the 宣伝 picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus de Milo statuette which made it look "real tasty."

Little Cousin Georgiana. Not such a bad little soul. But dreary—very. Always looking as if she had just been starched and アイロンをかけるd. Always afraid to let herself go. The only thing she really enjoyed was a funeral. You knew where you were with a 死体. Nothing more could happen to it. But while there was life there was 恐れる.

Uncle James. Handsome, 黒人／ボイコット, with his sarcastic, 罠（にかける）-like mouth and アイロンをかける-grey 味方する-燃やすs, whose favourite amusement was to 令状 議論の的になる letters to the Christian Times, attacking Modernism. Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he did when awake. No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered her. A pretty, 極度の慎重さを要する thing. Uncle James had 否定するd her everything she 手配中の，お尋ね者 and にわか雨d on her everything she didn't want. He had killed her—やめる 合法的に. She had been smothered and 餓死するd.

Uncle Benjamin, wheezy, pussy-mouthed. With 広大な／多数の／重要な pouches under 注目する，もくろむs that held nothing in reverence.

Uncle Wellington. Long, pallid 直面する, thin, pale-yellow hair—"one of the fair Stirlings"—thin, stooping 団体／死体, abominably high forehead with such ugly wrinkles, and "注目する，もくろむs about as intelligent as a fish's," thought Valancy. "Looks like a 風刺漫画 of himself."

Aunt Wellington. 指名するd Mary but called by her husband's 指名する to distinguish her from 広大な／多数の／重要な-aunt Mary. A 大規模な, dignified, 永久の lady. Splendidly arranged, アイロンをかける-grey hair. Rich, 流行の／上流の beaded dress. Had her moles 除去するd by electrolysis—which Aunt Mildred thought was a wicked 回避 of the 目的s of God.

Uncle Herbert, with his spiky grey hair. Aunt Alberta, who 新たな展開d her mouth so unpleasantly in talking and had a 広大な／多数の／重要な 評判 for unselfishness because she was always giving up a lot of things she didn't want. Valancy let them off easily in her judgment because she liked them, even if they were in Milton's expressive phrase, "stupidly good." But she wondered for what inscrutable 推論する／理由 Aunt Alberta had seen fit to tie a 黒人／ボイコット velvet 略章 around each of her chubby 武器 above the 肘.

Then she looked across the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する at Olive. Olive, who had been held up to her as a paragon of beauty, behaviour and success as long as she could remember. "Why can't you 持つ／拘留する yourself like Olive, Doss? Why can't you stand 正確に like Olive, Doss? Why can't you speak prettily like Olive, Doss? Why can't you make an 成果／努力, Doss?"

Valancy's elfin 注目する，もくろむs lost their mocking glitter and became pensive and sorrowful. You could not ignore or disdain Olive. It was やめる impossible to 否定する that she was beautiful and 効果的な and いつかs she was a little intelligent. Her mouth might be a trifle 激しい—she might show her 罰金, white, 正規の／正選手 teeth rather too lavishly when she smiled. But when all was said and done, Olive 正当化するd Uncle Benjamin's summing up—"a 素晴らしい girl." Yes, Valancy agreed in her heart, Olive was 素晴らしい.

Rich, golden-brown hair, elaborately dressed, with a sparkling bandeau 持つ／拘留するing its glossy puffs in place; large, brilliant blue 注目する，もくろむs and 厚い silken 攻撃するs; 直面する of rose and 明らかにする neck of snow, rising above her gown; 広大な／多数の／重要な pearl 泡s in her ears; the blue-white diamond 炎上 on her long, smooth, waxen finger with its rosy, pointed nail. 武器 of marble, gleaming through green chiffon and 影をつくる／尾行する lace. Valancy felt suddenly thankful that her own scrawny 武器 were decently 列d in brown silk. Then she 再開するd her 一覧表にすること of Olive's charms.

Tall. Queenly. 確信して. Everything that Valancy was not. Dimples, too, in cheeks and chin. "A woman with dimples always gets her own way," thought Valancy, in a recurring spasm of bitterness at the 運命／宿命 which had 否定するd her even one dimple.

Olive was only a year younger than Valancy, though a stranger would have thought that there was at least ten years between them. But nobody ever dreaded old maidenhood for her. Olive had been surrounded by a （人が）群がる of eager beaus since her 早期に teens, just as her mirror was always surrounded by a fringe of cards, photographs, programmes and 招待s. At eighteen, when she had 卒業生（する）d from Havergal College, Olive had been engaged to Will Desmond, lawyer in embryo. Will Desmond had died and Olive had 嘆く／悼むd for him 適切に for two years. When she was twenty-three she had a hectic 事件／事情／状勢 with Donald Jackson. But Aunt and Uncle Wellington disapproved of that and in the end Olive dutifully gave him up. Nobody in the Stirling 一族／派閥—whatever 部外者s might say—hinted that she did so because Donald himself was 冷静な／正味のing off. However that might be, Olive's third 投機・賭ける met with everybody's 是認. Cecil Price was clever and handsome and "one of the Port Lawrence Prices." Olive had been engaged to him for three years. He had just 卒業生（する）d in civil 工学 and they were to be married as soon as he landed a 契約. Olive's hope chest was 十分な to 洪水ing with exquisite things and Olive had already confided to Valancy what her wedding-dress was to be. Ivory silk draped with lace, white satin 法廷，裁判所 train, lined with pale green georgette, heirloom 隠す of Brussels lace. Valancy knew also—though Olive had not told her—that the bridesmaids were selected and that she was not の中で them.

Valancy had, after a fashion, always been Olive's confidante—perhaps because she was the only girl in the 関係 who could not bore Olive with return 信用／信任s. Olive always told Valancy all the 詳細（に述べる）s of her love 事件／事情／状勢s, from the days when the little boys in school used to "迫害する" her with love letters. Valancy could not 慰安 herself by thinking these 事件／事情／状勢s mythical. Olive really had them. Many men had gone mad over her besides the three fortunate ones.

"I don't know what the poor idiots see in me, that 運動s them to make such 二塁打 idiots of themselves," Olive was wont to say. Valancy would have liked to say, "I don't either," but truth and 外交 both 抑制するd her. She did know, perfectly 井戸／弁護士席. Olive Stirling was one of the girls about whom men do go mad just as indubitably as she, Valancy, was one of the girls at whom no man ever looked twice.

"And yet," thought Valancy, summing her up with a new and merciless conclusiveness, "she's like a dewless morning. There's something 欠如（する）ing."

CHAPTER XI

一方／合間 the dinner in its earlier 行う／開催する／段階s was dragging its slow length along true to Stirling form. The room was chilly, in spite of the calendar, and Aunt Alberta had the gas-スピードを出す／記録につけるs lighted. Everybody in the 一族／派閥 envied her those gas-スピードを出す／記録につけるs except Valancy. Glorious 射撃を開始するs 炎d in every room of her Blue 城 when autumnal nights were 冷静な／正味の, but she would have frozen to death in it before she would have committed the sacrilege of a gas-スピードを出す／記録につける. Uncle Herbert made his hardy perennial joke when he helped Aunt Wellington to the 冷淡な meat—"Mary, will you have a little lamb?" Aunt Mildred told the same old story of once finding a lost （犯罪の）一味 in a turkey's 刈る. Uncle Benjamin told his favourite prosy tale of how he had once chased and punished a now famous man for stealing apples. Second Cousin Jane 述べるd all her sufferings with an ulcerating tooth. Aunt Wellington admired the pattern of Aunt Alberta's silver teaspoons and lamented the fact that one of her own had been lost.

"It spoiled the 始める，決める. I could never get it matched. And it was my wedding-現在の from dear old Aunt Matilda."

Aunt Isabel thought the seasons were changing and couldn't imagine what had become of our good, old-fashioned springs. Cousin Georgiana, as usual, discussed the last funeral and wondered, audibly, "which of us will be the next to pass away." Cousin Georgiana could never say anything as blunt as "die." Valancy thought she could tell her, but didn't. Cousin Gladys, likewise as usual, had a grievance. Her visiting 甥s had nipped all the buds off her house-工場／植物s and chivied her brood of fancy chickens—"squeezed some of them 現実に to death, my dear."

"Boys will be boys," reminded Uncle Herbert tolerantly.

"But they needn't be ramping, rampageous animals," retorted Cousin Gladys, looking 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する for 評価 of her wit. Everybody smiled except Valancy. Cousin Gladys remembered that. A few minutes later, when Ellen Hamilton was 存在 discussed, Cousin Gladys spoke of her as "one of those shy, plain girls who can't get husbands," and ちらりと見ることd 意味ありげに at Valancy.

Uncle James thought the conversation was sagging to a rather low 計画（する） of personal gossip. He tried to elevate it by starting an abstract discussion on "the greatest happiness." Everybody was asked to 明言する／公表する his or her idea of "the greatest happiness."

Aunt Mildred thought the greatest happiness—for a woman—was to be "a loving and beloved wife and mother." Aunt Wellington thought it would be to travel in Europe. Olive thought it would be to be a 広大な／多数の／重要な singer like Tetrazzini. Cousin Gladys 発言／述べるd mournfully that her greatest happiness would be to be 解放する／自由な—絶対 解放する／自由な—from neuritis. Cousin Georgiana's greatest happiness would be "to have her dear, dead brother Richard 支援する." Aunt Alberta 発言／述べるd ばく然と that the greatest happiness was to be 設立する in "the poetry of life" and あわてて gave some directions to her maid to 妨げる any one asking her what she meant. Mrs. Frederick said the greatest happiness was to spend your life in loving service for others, and Cousin Stickles and Aunt Isabel agreed with her—Aunt Isabel with a resentful 空気／公表する, as if she thought Mrs. Frederick had taken the 勝利，勝つd out of her sails by 説 it first. "We are all too 傾向がある," continued Mrs. Frederick, 決定するd not to lose so good an 適切な時期, "to live in selfishness, worldliness and sin." The other women all felt rebuked for their low ideals, and Uncle James had a 有罪の判決 that the conversation had been uplifted with a vengeance.

"The greatest happiness," said Valancy suddenly and distinctly, "is to sneeze when you want to."

Everybody 星／主役にするd. Nobody felt it 安全な to say anything. Was Valancy trying to be funny? It was incredible. Mrs. Frederick, who had been breathing easier since the dinner had 進歩d so far without any 突発／発生 on the part of Valancy began to tremble again. But she みなすd it the part of prudence to say nothing. Uncle Benjamin was not so 慎重な. He rashly 急ぐd in where Mrs. Frederick 恐れるd to tread.

"Doss," he chuckled, "what is the difference between a young girl and an old maid?"

"One is happy and careless and the other is cappy and hairless," said Valancy. "You have asked that riddle at least fifty times in my recollection, Uncle Ben. Why don't you 追跡（する） up some new riddles if riddle you must? It is such a 致命的な mistake to try to be funny if you don't 後継する."

Uncle Benjamin 星／主役にするd foolishly. Never in his life had he, Benjamin Stirling, of Stirling and 霜, been spoken to so. And by Valancy of all people! He looked feebly around the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する to see what the others thought of it. Everybody was looking rather blank. Poor Mrs. Frederick had shut her 注目する，もくろむs. And her lips moved tremblingly—as if she were praying. Perhaps she was. The 状況／情勢 was so 前例のない that nobody knew how to 会合，会う it. Valancy went on calmly eating her salad as if nothing out of the usual had occurred.

Aunt Alberta, to save her dinner, 急落（する），激減（する）d into an account of how a dog had bitten her recently. Uncle James, to 支援する her up, asked where the dog had bitten her.

"Just a little below the カトリック教徒 church," said Aunt Alberta.

At that point Valancy laughed. Nobody else laughed. What was there to laugh at?

"Is that a 決定的な part?" asked Valancy.

"What do you mean?" said bewildered Aunt Alberta, and Mrs. Frederick was almost driven to believe that she had served God all her years for naught.

Aunt Isabel 結論するd that it was up to her to 抑える Valancy.

"Doss, you are horribly thin," she said. "You are all corners. Do you ever try to fatten up a little?"

"No." Valancy was not asking ４半期/4分の1 or giving it. "But I can tell you where you'll find a beauty parlour in Port Lawrence where they can 減ずる the number of your chins."

"Val-an-cy!" The 抗議する was wrung from Mrs. Frederick. She meant her トン to be stately and majestic, as usual, but it sounded more like an imploring whine. And she did not say "Doss."

"She's feverish," said Cousin Stickles to Uncle Benjamin in an agonised whisper. "We've thought she's seemed feverish for several days."

"She's gone dippy, in my opinion," growled Uncle Benjamin. "If not, she せねばならない be spanked. Yes, spanked."

"You can't spank her." Cousin Stickles was much agitated. "She's twenty-nine years old."

"So there is that advantage, at least, in 存在 twenty-nine," said Valancy, whose ears had caught this aside.

"Doss," said Uncle Benjamin, "when I am dead you may say what you please. As long as I am alive I 需要・要求する to be 扱う／治療するd with 尊敬（する）・点."

"Oh, but you know we're all dead," said Valancy, "the whole Stirling 一族／派閥. Some of us are buried and some aren't—yet. That is the only difference."

"Doss," said Uncle Benjamin, thinking it might cow Valancy, "do you remember the time you stole the raspberry jam?"

Valancy 紅潮／摘発するd scarlet—with 抑えるd laughter, not shame. She had been sure Uncle Benjamin would drag that jam in somehow.

"Of course I do," she said. "It was good jam. I've always been sorry I hadn't time to eat more of it before you 設立する me. Oh, look at Aunt Isabel's profile on the 塀で囲む. Did you ever see anything so funny?"

Everybody looked, 含むing Aunt Isabel herself which of course, destroyed it. But Uncle Herbert said kindly, "I—I wouldn't eat any more if I were you, Doss. It isn't that I grudge it—but don't you think it would be better for yourself? Your—your stomach seems a little out of order."

"Don't worry about my stomach, old dear," said Valancy. "It is all 権利. I'm going to keep 権利 on eating. It's so seldom I get the chance of a 満足させるing meal."

It was the first time any one had been called "old dear" in Deerwood. The Stirlings thought Valancy had invented the phrase and they were afraid of her from that moment. There was something so uncanny about such an 表現. But in poor Mrs. Frederick's opinion the 言及／関連 to a 満足させるing meal was the worst thing Valancy had said yet. Valancy had always been a 失望 to her. Now she was a 不名誉. She thought she would have to get up and go away from the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. Yet she dared not leave Valancy there.

Aunt Alberta's maid （機の）カム in to 除去する the salad plates and bring in the dessert. It was a welcome 転換. Everybody brightened up with a 決意 to ignore Valancy and talk as if she wasn't there. Uncle Wellington について言及するd Barney Snaith. 結局 somebody did について言及する Barney Snaith at every Stirling 機能（する）／行事, Valancy 反映するd. Whatever he was, he was an individual that could not be ignored. She 辞職するd herself to listen. There was a subtle fascination in the 支配する for her, though she had not yet 直面するd this fact. She could feel her pulses （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing to her finger-tips.

Of course they 乱用d him. Nobody ever had a good word to say of Barney Snaith. All the old, wild tales were canvassed—the defaulting cashier-counterfeiter-infidel-殺害者-in-hiding legends were thrashed out. Uncle Wellington was very indignant that such a creature should be 許すd to 存在する at all in the neighbourhood of Deerwood. He didn't know what the police at Port Lawrence were thinking of. Everybody would be 殺人d in their beds some night. It was a shame that he should be 許すd to be 捕まらないで after all that he had done.

"What has he done?" asked Valancy suddenly.

Uncle Wellington 星／主役にするd at her, forgetting that she was to be ignored.

"Done! Done! He's done everything."

"What has he done?" repeated Valancy inexorably. "What do you know that he has done? You're always running him 負かす／撃墜する. And what has ever been 証明するd against him?"

"I don't argue with women," said Uncle Wellington. "And I don't need proof. When a man hides himself up there on an island in Muskoka, year in and year out, and nobody can find out where he （機の）カム from or how he lives, or what he does there, that's proof enough. Find a mystery and you find a 罪，犯罪."

"The very idea of a man 指名するd Snaith!" said Second Cousin Sarah. "Why, the 指名する itself is enough to 非難する him!"

"I wouldn't like to 会合，会う him in a dark 小道／航路," shivered Cousin Georgiana.

"What do you suppose he would do to you?" asked Valancy.

"殺人 me," said Cousin Georgiana solemnly.

"Just for the fun of it?" 示唆するd Valancy.

"正確に／まさに," said Cousin Georgiana unsuspiciously. "When there is so much smoke there must be some 解雇する／砲火／射撃. I was afraid he was a 犯罪の when he （機の）カム here first. I felt he had something to hide. I am not often mistaken in my intuitions."

"犯罪の! Oh course he's a 犯罪の," said Uncle Wellington. "Nobody 疑問s it"—glaring at Valancy. "Why, they say he served a 称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 in the 刑務所 for 使い込み，横領. I don't 疑問 it. And they say he's in with that ギャング（団） that are （罪などを）犯すing all those 銀行強盗s 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the country."

"Who say?" asked Valancy.

Uncle Wellington knotted his ugly forehead at her. What had got into this confounded girl, anyway? He ignored the question.

"He has the 同一の look of a 刑務所，拘置所-bird," snapped Uncle Benjamin. "I noticed it the first time I saw him."

"'A fellow by the 手渡す of nature 示すd,
引用するd and sighed to do a 行為 of shame',"

declaimed Uncle James. He looked enormously pleased over the managing to work that quotation in at last. He had been waiting all his life for the chance.

"One of his eyebrows is an arch and the other is a triangle," said Valancy. "Is that why you think him so villainous?"

Uncle James 解除するd his eyebrows. 一般に when Uncle James 解除するd his eyebrows the world （機の）カム to an end. This time it continued to 機能（する）／行事.

"How do you know his eyebrows so 井戸／弁護士席, Doss?" asked Olive, a trifle maliciously. Such a 発言／述べる would have covered Valancy with 混乱 two weeks ago, and Olive knew it.

"Yes, how?" 需要・要求するd Aunt Wellington.

"I've seen him twice and I looked at him closely," said Valancy composedly. "I thought his 直面する the most 利益／興味ing one I ever saw."

"There is no 疑問 there is something fishy in the creature's past life," said Olive, who began to think she was decidedly out of the conversation, which had centred so amazingly around Valancy. "But he can hardly be 有罪の of everything he's （刑事）被告 of, you know."

Valancy felt annoyed with Olive. Why should she speak up in even this qualified defence of Barney Snaith? What had she to do with him? For that 事柄, what had Valancy? But Valancy did not ask herself this question.

"They say he keeps dozens of cats in that hut up 支援する on Mistawis," said Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, by way of appearing not 完全に ignorant of him.

Cats. It sounded やめる alluring to Valancy, in the plural. She pictured an island in Muskoka haunted by pussies.

"That alone shows there is something wrong with him," 法令d Aunt Isabel.

"People who don't like cats," said Valancy, attacking her dessert with a relish, "always seem to think that there is some peculiar virtue in not liking them."

"The man hasn't a friend except Roaring Abel," said Uncle Wellington. "And if Roaring Abel had kept away from him, as everybody else did, it would have been better for—for some members of his family."

Uncle Wellington's rather lame 結論 was 予定 to a 結婚の／夫婦の ちらりと見ること from Aunt Wellington reminding him of what he had almost forgotten—that there were girls at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

"If you mean," said Valancy passionately, "that Barney Snaith is the father of Cecily Gay's child, he isn't. It's a wicked 嘘（をつく）."

In spite of her indignation Valancy was hugely amused at the 表現 of the 直面するs around that festal （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. She had not seen anything like it since the day, seventeen years ago, when at Cousin Gladys' thimble party, they discovered that she had got—SOMETHING—in her 長，率いる at school. Lice in her 長，率いる! Valancy was done with euphemisms.

Poor Mrs. Frederick was almost in a 明言する／公表する of 崩壊（する）. She had believed—or pretended to believe—the Valancy still supposed that children were 設立する in parsley beds.

"Hush—hush!" implored Cousin Stickles.

"I don't mean to hush," said Valancy perversely. "I've hush-hushed all my life. I'll 叫び声をあげる if I want to. Don't make me want to. And stop talking nonsense about Barney Snaith."

Valancy didn't 正確に／まさに understand her own indignation. What did Barney Snaith's imputed 罪，犯罪s and misdemeanours 事柄 to her? And why, out of them all, did it seem most intolerable that he should have been poor, pitiful little Cecily Gay's 誤った lover? For it did seem intolerable to her. She did not mind when they called him a どろぼう and a counterfeiter and 刑務所，拘置所-bird; but she could not 耐える to think that he had loved and 廃虚d Cecily Gay. She 解任するd his 直面する on the two occasions of their chance 会合s—his 新たな展開d, enigmatic, engaging smile, his twinkle, his thin, 極度の慎重さを要する, almost ascetic lips, his general 空気／公表する of frank daredeviltry. A man with such a smile and lips might have 殺人d or stolen but he could not have betrayed. She suddenly hated every one who said it or believed it of him.

"When I was a young girl I never thought or spoke about such 事柄s, Doss," said Aunt Wellington, crushingly.

"But I'm not a young girl," retorted Valancy, uncrushed. "Aren't you always rubbing that into me? And you are all evil-minded, senseless gossips. Can't you leave poor Cissy Gay alone? She's dying. Whatever she did, God or the Devil has punished her enough for it. You needn't take a 手渡す, too. As for Barney Snaith, the only 罪，犯罪 he has been 有罪の of is living to himself and minding his own 商売／仕事. He can, it seems, get along without you. Which is an unpardonable sin, of course, in your little snobocracy." Valancy coined that 結論するing word suddenly and felt that it was an inspiration. That was 正確に／まさに what they were and not one of them was fit to mend another.

"Valancy, your poor father would turn over in his 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な if he could hear you," said Mrs. Frederick.

"I dare say he would like that for a change," said Valancy brazenly.

"Doss," said Uncle James ひどく, "the Ten Commandments are 公正に／かなり up to date still—特に the fifth. Have you forgotten that?"

"No," said Valancy, "but I thought you had—特に the ninth. Have you ever thought, Uncle James, how dull life would be without the Ten Commandments? It is only when things are forbidden that they become fascinating."

But her excitement had been too much for her. She knew, by 確かな unmistakable 警告s, that one of her attacks of 苦痛 was coming on. It must not find her there. She rose from her 議長，司会を務める.

"I am going home now. I only （機の）カム for the dinner. It was very good, Aunt Alberta, although your salad-dressing is not salt enough and a dash of cayenne would 改善する it."

非，不，無 of the flabbergasted silver wedding guests could think of anything to say until the lawn gate clanged behind Valancy in the dusk. Then—

"She's feverish—I've said 権利 along she was feverish," moaned Cousin Stickles.

Uncle Benjamin punished his pudgy left 手渡す ひどく with his pudgy 権利.

"She's dippy—I tell you she's gone dippy," he snorted 怒って. "That's all there is about it. Clean dippy."

"Oh, Benjamin," said Cousin Georgiana soothingly, "don't 非難する her too rashly. We must remember what dear old Shakespeare says—that charity thinketh no evil."

"Charity! Poppy-cock!" snorted Uncle Benjamin. "I never heard a young woman talk such stuff in my life as she just did. Talking about things she せねばならない be ashamed to think of, much いっそう少なく について言及する. Blaspheming! 侮辱ing us! What she wants is a generous dose of spank-少しのd and I'd like to be the one to 治める it. H-uh-h-h-h!" Uncle Benjamin gulped 負かす／撃墜する the half of a scalding cup of coffee.

"Do you suppose that the mumps could work on a person that way?" wailed Cousin Stickles.

"I opened an umbrella in the house yesterday," 匂いをかぐd Cousin Georgiana. "I knew it betokened some misfortune."

"Have you tried to find out if she has a 気温?" asked Cousin Mildred.

"She wouldn't let Amelia put the 温度計 under her tongue," whimpered Cousin Stickles.

Mrs. Frederick was 率直に in 涙／ほころびs. All her defences were 負かす／撃墜する.

"I must tell you," she sobbed, "that Valancy has been 事実上の／代理 very strangely for over two weeks now. She hasn't been a bit like herself—Christine could tell you. I have hoped against hope that it was only one of her 冷淡なs coming on. But it is—it must be something worse."

"This is bringing on my neuritis again," said Cousin Gladys, putting her 手渡す to her 長，率いる.

"Don't cry, Amelia," said Herbert kindly, pulling nervously at his spiky grey hair. He hated "family ructions." Very inconsiderate of Doss to start one at his silver wedding. Who could have supposed she had it in her? "You'll have to take her to a doctor. This may be only a—er—a brainstorm. There are such things as brainstorms nowadays, aren't there?"

"I—I 示唆するd 協議するing a doctor to her yesterday," moaned Mrs. Frederick. "And she said she wouldn't go to a doctor—wouldn't. Oh, surely I have had trouble enough!"

"And she won't take Redfern's Bitters," said Cousin Stickles.

"Or anything,' said Mrs. Frederick. "And she's 決定するd to go to the Presbyterian church," said Cousin Stickles—repressing, however, to her credit be it said, the story of the bannister.

"That 証明するs she's dippy," growled Uncle Benjamin. "I noticed something strange about her the minute she （機の）カム in today. I noticed it before today." (Uncle Benjamin was thinking of "m-i-r-a-z-h.") "Everything she said today showed an unbalanced mind. That question—'Was it a 決定的な part?' Was there any sense at all in that 発言／述べる? 非，不，無 whatever! There never was anything like that in the Stirlings. It must be from the Wansbarras."

Poor Mrs. Frederick was too 鎮圧するd to be indignant. "I never heard of anything like that in the Wansbarras," she sobbed,

"Your father was 半端物 enough," said Uncle Benjamin.

"Poor Pa was—peculiar," 認める Mrs. Frederick tearfully, "but his mind was never 影響する／感情d."

"He talked all his life 正確に／まさに as Valancy did today," retorted Uncle Benjamin. "And he believed he was his own 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な grandfather born over again. I've heard him say it. Don't tell me that a man who believed a thing like that was ever in his 権利 senses. Come, come, Amelia, stop sniffling. Of course Doss has made a terrible 展示 of herself today, but she's not responsible. Old maids are apt to 飛行機で行く off at a tangent like that. If she had been married when she should have been she wouldn't have got like this."

"Nobody 手配中の，お尋ね者 to marry her," said Mrs. Frederick, who felt that, somehow, Uncle Benjamin was 非難するing her.

"井戸／弁護士席, fortunately there's no 部外者 here," snapped Uncle Benjamin. "We may keep it in the family yet. I'll take her over to see Dr. 沼 tomorrow. I know how to を取り引きする pig-長，率いるd people. Won't that be best, James?"

"We must have 医療の advice certainly," agreed Uncle James.

"井戸／弁護士席, that's settled. In the 合間, Amelia, 行為／法令／行動する as if nothing had happened and keep an 注目する，もくろむ on her. Don't let her be alone. Above all, don't let her sleep alone."

新たにするd whimpers from Mrs. Frederick.

"I can't help it. Night before last I 示唆するd she'd better have Christine sleep with her. She 前向きに／確かに 辞退するd—and locked her door. Oh, you don't know how she's changed. She won't work. At least, she won't sew. She does her usual 家事, of course. But she wouldn't sweep the parlour yesterday morning, though we always sweep it on Thursdays. She said she'd wait till it was dirty. 'Would you rather sweep a dirty room than a clean one?' I asked her. She said, 'Of course. I'd see something for my 労働 then.' Think of it!"

Uncle Benjamin thought of it.

"The jar of potpourri"—Cousin Stickles pronounced it as （一定の）期間d—"has disappeared from her room. I 設立する the pieces in the next lot. She won't tell us what happened to it."

"I should never have dreamed it of Doss," said Uncle Herbert. "She has always seemed such a 静かな, sensible girl. A bit backward—but sensible."

"The only thing you can be sure of in this world is the multiplication （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する," said Uncle James, feeling cleverer than ever.

"井戸／弁護士席, let's 元気づける up," 示唆するd Uncle Benjamin. "Why are chorus girls like 罰金 在庫／株 raisers?"

"Why?" asked Cousin Stickles, since it had to be asked and Valancy wasn't there to ask it.

"Like to 展示（する） calves," chuckled Uncle Benjamin.

Cousin Stickles thought Uncle Benjamin a little indelicate. Before Olive, too. But then, he was a man.

Uncle Herbert was thinking that things were rather dull now that Doss had gone.

CHAPTER XII

Valancy hurried home through the faint blue twilight—hurried too 急速な／放蕩な perhaps. The attack she had when she thankfully reached the 避難所 of her own room was the worst yet. It was really very bad. She might die in one of those （一定の）期間s. It would be dreadful to die in such 苦痛. Perhaps—perhaps this was death. Valancy felt pitifully alone. When she could think at all she wondered what it would be like to have someone with her who could sympathise—someone who really cared—just to 持つ／拘留する her 手渡す tight, if nothing else—some one just to say, "Yes, I know. It's dreadful—be 勇敢に立ち向かう—you'll soon be better;" not some one 単に fussy and alarmed. Not her mother or Cousin Stickles. Why did the thought of Barney Snaith come into her mind? Why did she suddenly feel, in the 中央 of this hideous loneliness of 苦痛, that he would be 同情的な—sorry for any one that was 苦しむing? Why did he seem to her like an old, 井戸／弁護士席-known friend? Was it because she had been defending him—standing up to her family for him?

She was so bad at first that she could not even get herself a dose of Dr. Trent's prescription. But 結局 she managed it, and soon after 救済 （機の）カム. The 苦痛 left her and she lay on her bed, spent, exhausted, in a 冷淡な perspiration. Oh, that had been horrible! She could not 耐える many more attacks like that. One didn't mind dying if death could be instant and painless. But to be 傷つける so in dying!

Suddenly she 設立する herself laughing. That dinner had been fun. And it had all been so simple. She had 単に said the things she had always thought. Their 直面するs! Uncle Benjamin—poor, flabbergasted Uncle Benjamin! Valancy felt やめる sure he would make a new will that very night. Olive would get Valancy's 株 of his fat hoard. Olive had always got Valancy's 株 of everything. Remember the dust-pile.

To laugh at her 一族／派閥 as she had always 手配中の，お尋ね者 to laugh was all the satisfaction she could get out of life now. But she thought it was rather pitiful that it should be so. Might she not pity herself a little when nobody else did?

Valancy got up and went to her window. The moist, beautiful 勝利，勝つd blowing across groves of young-leafed wild trees touched her 直面する with the caress of a wise, tender, old friend. The lombardies in Mrs. Tredgold's lawn, off to the left—Valancy could just see them between the stable and the old carriage-shop—were in dark purple silhouette against a （疑いを）晴らす sky and there was a milk-white, pulsating 星／主役にする just over one of them, like a living pearl on a silver-green lake. Far beyond the 駅／配置する were the shadowy, purple-hooded 支持を得ようと努めるd around Lake Mistawis. A white, filmy もや hung over them and just above it was a faint, young 三日月. Valancy looked at it over her thin left shoulder.

"I wish," she said whimsically, "that I may have one little dust-pile before I die."

CHAPTER XIII

Uncle Benjamin 設立する he had reckoned without his host when he 約束d so airily to take Valancy to a doctor. Valancy would not go. Valancy laughed in his 直面する.

"Why on earth should I go to Dr. 沼? There's nothing the 事柄 with my mind. Though you all think I've suddenly gone crazy. 井戸／弁護士席, I 港／避難所't. I've 簡単に grown tired of living to please other people and have decided to please myself. It will give you something to talk about besides my stealing the raspberry jam. So that's that."

"Doss," said Uncle Benjamin, solemnly and helplessly, "you are not—like yourself."

"Who am I like, then?" asked Valancy.

Uncle Benjamin was rather 提起する／ポーズをとるd.

"Your Grandfather Wansbarra," he answered 猛烈に.

"Thanks." Valancy looked pleased. "That's a real compliment. I remember Grandfather Wansbarra. He was one of the few human 存在s I have known—almost the only one. Now, it is of no use to scold or entreat or 命令（する）, Uncle Benjamin—or 交流 anguished ちらりと見ることs with Mother and Cousin Stickles. I am not going to any doctor. And if you bring any doctor here I won't see him. So what are you going to do about it?"

What indeed! It was not seemly—or even possible—to hale Valancy doctorwards by physical 軍隊. And in no other way could it be done, seemingly. Her mother's 涙／ほころびs and imploring entreaties availed not.

"Don't worry, Mother," said Valancy, lightly but やめる respectfully. "It isn't likely I'll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a little fun."

"Fun!" Mrs. Frederick uttered the word as if Valancy had said she was going to have a little tuberculosis.

Olive, sent by her mother to see if she had any 影響（力） over Valancy, （機の）カム away with 紅潮／摘発するd cheeks and angry 注目する，もくろむs. She told her mother that nothing could be done with Valancy. After she, Olive, had talked to her just like a sister, tenderly and wisely, all Valancy had said, 狭くするing her funny 注目する，もくろむs to mere slips, was, "I don't show my gums when I laugh."

"More as if she were talking to herself than to me. Indeed, Mother, all the time I was talking to her she gave me the impression of not really listening. And that wasn't all. When I finally decided that what I was 説 had no 影響（力） over her I begged her, when Cecil （機の）カム next week, not to say anything queer before him, at least. Mother, what do you think she said?"

"I'm sure I can't imagine," groaned Aunt Wellington, 用意が出来ている for anything.

"She said, 'I'd rather like to shock Cecil. His mouth is too red for a man's.' Mother, I can never feel the same to Valancy again."

"Her mind is 影響する／感情d, Olive," said Aunt Wellington solemnly. "You must not 持つ／拘留する her responsibile for what she says."

When Aunt Wellington told Mrs. Frederick what Valancy had said to Olive, Mrs. Frederick 手配中の，お尋ね者 Valancy to apoligise.

"You made me apologise to Olive fifteen years ago for something I didn't do," said Valancy. "That old 陳謝 will do for now."

Another solemn family conclave was held. They were all there except Cousin Gladys, who had been 苦しむing such 拷問s of neuritis in her 長，率いる "ever since poor Doss went queer" that she couldn't 請け負う any 責任／義務. They decided—that is, they 受託するd a fact that was thrust in their 直面するs—that the wisest thing was to leave Valancy alone for a while—"give her her 長，率いる" as Uncle Benjamin 表明するd it—"keep a careful 注目する，もくろむ on her but let her pretty much alone." The 称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 of "watchful waiting" had not been invented then, but that was 事実上 the 政策 Valancy's distracted 親族s decided to follow.

"We must be guided by 開発s," said Uncle Benjamin. "It is"—solemnly—"easier to 緊急発進する eggs that unscramble them. Of course—if she becomes violent—"

Uncle James 協議するd Dr. Ambrose 沼. Dr. Ambrose 沼 認可するd their 決定／判定勝ち（する）. He pointed out to 怒った Uncle James—who would have liked to lock Valancy up somewhere, out of 手渡す—that Valancy had not, as yet, really done or said anything that could be 建設するd as proof of lunacy—and without proof you cannot lock people up in this degenerate age. Nothing that Uncle James had 報告（する）／憶測d seemed very alarming to Dr. 沼, who put up his 手渡す to 隠す a smile several times. But then he himself was not a Stirling. And he knew very little about the old Valancy. Uncle James stalked out and drove 支援する to Deerwood, thinking that Ambrose 沼 wasn't much of a doctor, after all, and that Adelaide Stirling might have done better for herself.

CHAPTER XIV

Life cannot stop because 悲劇 enters it. Meals must be made ready though a son dies and porches must be 修理d even if your only daughter is going out of her mind. Mrs. Frederick, in her systematic way, had long ago 任命するd the second week in June for the 修理ing of the 前線 porch, the roof of which was sagging 危険に. Roaring Abel had been engaged to do it many moons before and Roaring Abel 敏速に appeared on the morning of the first day of the second week, and fell to work. Of course he was drunk. Roaring Abel was never anything but drunk. But he was only in the first 行う／開催する／段階, which made him talkative and genial. The odour of whisky on his breath nearly drove Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles wild at dinner. Even Valancy, with all her emancipation, did not like it. But she liked Abel and she liked his vivid, eloquent talk, and after she washed the dinner dishes she went out and sat on the steps and talked to him.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought it a terrible 訴訟／進行, but what could they do? Valancy only smiled mockingly at them when they called her in, and did not go. It was so 平易な to 反抗する once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted. They were both afraid to say anything more to her lest she might make a scene before Roaring Abel, who would spread it all over the country with his own characteristic comments and exaggerations. It was too 冷淡な a day, in spite of the June 日光, for Mrs. Frederick to sit at the dining-room window and listen to what was said. She had to shut the window and Valancy and Roaring Abel had their talk to themselves. But if Mrs. Frederick had known what the 結果 of that talk was to be she would have 妨げるd it, if the porch was never 修理d.

Valancy sat on the steps, 反抗的な of the 冷気／寒がらせる 微風 of this 冷淡な June which had made Aunt Isabel aver the seasons were changing. She did not care whether she caught a 冷淡な or not. It was delightful to sit there in that 冷淡な, beautiful, fragrant world and feel 解放する／自由な. She filled her 肺s with the clean, lovely 勝利，勝つd and held out her 武器 to it and let it 涙／ほころび her hair to pieces while she listening to Roaring Abel, who told her his troubles between intervals of 大打撃を与えるing gaily in time to his Scotch songs. Valancy liked to hear him. Every 一打／打撃 of his 大打撃を与える fell true to the 公式文書，認める.

Old Abel Gay, in spite of his seventy years, was handsome still, in a stately, patriarchal manner. His tremendous 耐えるd, 落ちるing 負かす／撃墜する over his blue flannel shirt, was still a 炎上ing, untouched red, though his shock of hair was white as snow, and his 注目する，もくろむs were a fiery, youthful blue. His enormous, 赤みを帯びた-white eyebrows were more like moustaches than eyebrows. Perhaps this was why he always kept his upper lip scrupulously shaved. His cheeks were red and his nose せねばならない have been, but wasn't. It was a 罰金, upstanding, aquiline nose, such as the noblest Roman of them all might have rejoiced in. Abel was six feet two in his stockings, 幅の広い-shouldered, lean-hipped. In his 青年 he had been a famous lover, finding all women too charming to 貯蔵所d himself to one. His years had been a wild, colourful panorama of follies and adventures, gallantries, fortunes and misfortunes. He had been forty-five before he married—a pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on killed in a few years. Abel was piously drunk at her funeral and 主張するd on repeating the fifty-fifth 一時期／支部 of Isaiah—Abel knew most of the Bible and all the Psalms by heart—while the 大臣, whom he disliked, prayed or tried to pray. Thereafter his house was run by an untidy old cousin who cooked his meals and kept things going after a fashion. In this unpromising 環境 little Cecilia Gay had grown up.

Valancy had known "Cissy Gay" 公正に／かなり 井戸／弁護士席 in the 僕主主義 of the public school, though Cissy had been three years younger than she. After they left school their paths diverged and she had seen nothing of her. Old Abel was a Presbyterian. That is, he got a Presbyterian preacher to marry him, baptise his child and bury his wife; and he knew more about Presbyterian theology than most 大臣s, which made him a terror to them in arguments. But Roaring Abel never went to church. Every Presbyterian 大臣 who had been in Deerwood had tried his 手渡す—once—at 改革（する）ing Roaring Abel. But he had not been pestered of late. Rev. Mr. Bently had been in Deerwood for eight years, but he had not sought out Roaring Abel since the first three months of his pastorate. He had called on Roaring Abel then and 設立する him in the theological 行う／開催する／段階 of drunkenness—which always followed the sentimental maudlin one, and に先行するd the roaring, blasphemous one. The eloquently prayerful one, in which he realised himself 一時的に and intensely as a sinner in the 手渡すs of an angry God, was the final one. Abel never went beyond it. He 一般に fell asleep on his 膝s and awakened sober, but he had never been "dead drunk" in his life. He told Mr. Bently that he was a sound Presbyterian and sure of his 選挙. He had no sins—that he knew of—to repent of.

"Have you never done anything in your life that you are sorry for?" asked Mr. Bently.

Roaring Abel scratched his bushy white 長，率いる and pretended to 反映する.

"井戸／弁護士席, yes," he said finally. "There were some women I might have kissed and didn't. I've always been sorry for that."

Mr. Bently went out and went home.

Abel had seen that Cissy was 適切に baptised—jovially drunk at the same time himself. He made her go to church and Sunday School 定期的に. The church people took her up and she was in turn a member of the 使節団 禁止（する）d, the Girls' Guild and the Young Women's Missionary Society. She was a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little 労働者. Everybody liked Cissy Gay and was sorry for her. She was so modest and 極度の慎重さを要する and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion of beauty which fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness. But then liking and pity did not 妨げる them from 涙／ほころびing her in pieces like hungry cats when the 大災害 （機の）カム. Four years 以前 Cissy Gay had gone up to a Muskoka hotel as a summer waitress. And when she had come 支援する in the 落ちる she was a changed creature. She hid herself away and went nowhere. The 推論する／理由 soon 漏れるd out and スキャンダル 激怒（する）d. That winter Cissy's baby was born. Nobody ever knew who the father was. Cecily kept her poor pale lips tightly locked on her sorry secret. Nobody dared ask Roaring Abel any questions about it. Rumour and surmise laid the 犯罪 at Barney Snaith's door because diligent 調査 の中で the other maids at the hotel 明らかにする／漏らすd the fact that nobody there had ever seen Cissy Gay "with a fellow." She had "kept herself to herself" they said, rather resentfully. "Too good for our dances. And now look!"

The baby had lived for a year. After its death Cissy faded away. Two years ago Dr. 沼 had given her only six months to live—her 肺s were hopelessly 病気d. But she was still alive. Nobody went to see her. Women would not go to Roaring Abel's house. Mr. Bently had gone once, when he knew Abel was away, but the dreadful old creature who was scrubbing the kitchen 床に打ち倒す told him Cissy wouldn't see any one. The old cousin had died and Roaring Abel had had two or three disreputable housekeepers—the only 肉親，親類d who could be 勝つ／広く一帯に広がるd on to go to a house where a girl was dying of 消費. But the last one had left and Roaring Abel had now no one to wait on Cissy and "do" for him. This was the 重荷（を負わせる） of his plaint to Valancy and he 非難するd the "hypocrites" of Deerwood and its surrounding communities with some rich, meaty 誓いs that happened to reach Cousin Stickles' ears as she passed through the hall and nearly finished the poor lady. Was Valancy listening to that?

Valancy hardly noticed the profanity. Her attention was focussed on the horrible thought of poor, unhappy, 不名誉d little Cissy Gay, ill and helpless in that forlorn old house out on the Mistawis road, without a soul to help or 慰安 her. And this in a 名目上 Christian community in the year of grace nineteen and some 半端物!

"Do you mean to say that Cissy is all alone there now, with nobody to do anything for her—nobody?"

"Oh, she can move about a bit and get a bite and sup when she wants it. But she can't work. It's d——d hard for a man to work hard all day and go home at night tired and hungry and cook his own meals. いつかs I'm sorry I kicked old Rachel Edwards out." Abel 述べるd Rachel picturesquely.

"Her 直面する looked as if it had wore out a hundred 団体／死体s. And she moped. Talk about temper! Temper's nothing to moping. She was too slow to catch worms, and dirty—d——d dirty. I ain't 不当な—I know a man has to eat his つつく／ペック before he dies—but she went over the 限界. What d'ye sp'ose I saw that lady do? She'd made some punkin jam—had it on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する in glass jars with the 最高の，を越すs off. The dawg got up on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and stuck his paw into one of them. What did she do? She jest took holt of the dawg and wrung the syrup off his paw 支援する into the jar! Then screwed the 最高の，を越す on and 始める，決める it in the pantry. I 始める，決めるs open the door and says to her, 'Go!' The dame went, and I 解雇する／砲火／射撃d the jars of punkin after her, two at a time. Thought I'd die laughing to see old Rachel run—with them punkin jars raining after her. She's told everywhere I'm crazy, so nobody'll come for love or money."

"But Cissy must have some one to look after her," 主張するd Valancy, whose mind was centred on this 面 of the 事例／患者. She did not care whether Roaring Abel had any one to cook for him or not. But her heart was wrung for Cecilia Gay.

"Oh, she gits on. Barney Snaith always 減少（する）s in when he's passing and does anything she wants done. Brings her oranges and flowers and things. There's a Christian for you. Yet that sanctimonious, snivelling 小包 of St. Andrew's people wouldn't be seen on the same 味方する of the road with him. Their dogs'll go to heaven before they do. And their 大臣—悪賢い as if the cat had licked him!"

"There are plenty of good people, both in St. Andrew's and St. George's, who would be 肉親，親類d to Cissy if you would behave yourself," said Valancy 厳しく. "They're afraid to go 近づく your place."

"Because I'm such a sad old dog? But I don't bite—never bit any one in my life. A few loose words 流出／こぼすd around don't 傷つける any one. And I'm not asking people to come. Don't want 'em poking and 調査するing about. What I want is a housekeeper. If I shaved every Sunday and went to church I'd get all the housekeepers I'd want. I'd be respectable then. But what's the use of going to church when it's all settled by predestination? Tell me that, 行方不明になる."

"Is it?" said Valancy.

"Yes. Can't git around it nohow. Wish I could. I don't want either heaven or hell for 安定した. Wish a man could have 'em mixed in equal 割合s."

"Isn't that the way it is in this world?" said Valancy thoughtfully—but rather as if her thought was 関心d with something else than theology.

"No, no," にわか景気d Abel, striking a tremendous blow on a stubborn nail. "There's too much hell here—完全に too much hell. That's why I get drunk so often. It 始める，決めるs you 解放する／自由な for a little while—解放する／自由な from yourself—yes, by God, 解放する／自由な from predestination. Ever try it?"

"No, I've another way of getting 解放する／自由な," said Valancy absently. "But about Cissy now. She must have some one to look after her—"

"What are you harping on Sis for? Seems to me you ain't bothered much about her up to now. You never even come to see her. And she used to like you so 井戸／弁護士席."

"I should have," said Valancy. "But never mind. You couldn't understand. The point is—you must have a housekeeper."

"Where am I to get one? I can 支払う／賃金 decent 給料 if I could get a decent woman. D'ye think I like old hags?"

"Will I do?" said Valancy.

CHAPTER XV

Let us be 静める," said Uncle Benjamin. "Let us be perfectly 静める."

"静める!" Mrs. Frederick wrung her 手渡すs. "How can I be 静める—how could anybody be 静める under such a 不名誉 as this?"

"Why in the world did you let her go?" asked Uncle James.

"Let her! How could I stop her, James? It seems she packed the big valise and sent it away with Roaring Abel when he went home after supper, while Christine and I were out in the kitchen. Then Doss herself （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する with her little satchel, dressed in her green serge 控訴. I felt a terrible premonition. I can't tell you how it was, but I seemed to know that Doss was going to do something dreadful."

"It's a pity you couldn't have had your premonition a little sooner," said Uncle Benjamin drily.

"I said, 'Doss, where are you going?" and she said, I am going to look for my Blue 城.'"

"Wouldn't you think that would 納得させる 沼 that her mind is 影響する／感情d?" interjected Uncle James.

"And I said, 'Valancy, what do you mean?' And she said, 'I am going to keep house for Roaring Abel and nurse Cissy. He will 支払う／賃金 me thirty dollars a month.' I wonder I didn't 減少（する） dead on the 位置／汚点／見つけ出す."

"You shouldn't have let her go—you shouldn't have let her out of the house," said Uncle James. "You should have locked the door—anything—"

"She was between me and the 前線 door. And you can't realise how 決定するd she was. She was like a 激しく揺する. That's the strangest thing of all about her. She used to be so good and obedient, and now she's neither to 持つ／拘留する nor 貯蔵所d. But I said everything I could think of to bring her to her senses. I asked her if she had no regard for her 評判. I said to her solemnly, 'Doss, when a woman's 評判 is once smirched nothing can ever make it spotless again. Your character will be gone for ever if you go to Roaring Abel's to wait on a bad girl like Sis Gay. And she said, 'I don't believe Cissy was a bad girl, but I don't care if she was.' Those were her very words, 'I don't care if she was.'"

"She has lost all sense of decency," 爆発するd Uncle Benjamin.

"'Cissy Gay is dying,' she said, 'and it's a shame and 不名誉 that she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for her. Whatever she's been or done, she's a human 存在.'"

"井戸／弁護士席, you know, when it comes to that, I suppose she is," said Uncle James with the 空気／公表する of one making a splendid 譲歩.

"I asked Doss if she had no regard for 外見s. She said, 'I've been keeping up 外見s all my life. Now I'm going in for realities. 外見s can go hang!' Go hang!"

"An outrageous thing!" said Uncle Benjamin violently. "An outrageous thing!"

Which relieved his feelings, but didn't help any one else.

Mrs. Frederick wept. Cousin Stickles took up the 差し控える between her moans of despair.

"I told her—we both told her—that Roaring Abel had certainly killed his wife in one of his drunken 激怒（する）s and would kill her. She laughed and said, 'I'm not afraid of Roaring Abel. He won't kill me, and he's too old for me to be afraid of his gallantries.' What did she mean? What are gallantries?"

Mrs. Frederick saw that she must stop crying if she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 回復する 支配（する）／統制する of the conversation.

"I said to her, 'Valancy, if you have no regard for your own 評判 and your family's standing, have you 非，不，無 for my feelings?' She said, '非，不，無.' Just like that, '非，不，無!'"

"Insane people never do have any regard for other people's feelings," said Uncle Benjamin. "That's one of the symptoms."

"I broke out into 涙／ほころびs then, and she said, 'Come now, Mother, be a good sport. I'm going to do an 行為／法令／行動する of Christian charity, and as for the 損失 it will do my 評判, why, you know I 港／避難所't any matrimonial chances anyhow, so what does it 事柄?' And with that she turned and went out."

"The last words I said to her," said Cousin Stickles pathetically, "were, 'Who will rub my 支援する at nights now?' And she said—she said—but no, I cannot repeat it."

"Nonsense," said Uncle Benjamin. "Out with it. This is no time to be squeamish."

"She said"—Cousin Stickles' 発言する／表明する was little more than a whisper—"she said—'Oh, darn!'"

"To think I should have lived to hear my daughter 断言するing!" sobbed Mrs. Frederick,

"It—it was only imitation 断言するing," 滞るd Cousin Stickles, desirous of smoothing things over now that the worst was out. But she had never told about the bannister.

"It will be only a step from that to real 断言するing," said Uncle James 厳しく.

"The worst of this"—Mrs. Frederick 追跡（する）d for a 乾燥した，日照りの 位置／汚点／見つけ出す on her handkerchief—"is that every one will know now that she is deranged. We can't keep it a secret any longer. Oh, I cannot 耐える it!"

"You should have been 厳格な人 with her when she was young," said Uncle Benjamin.

"I don't see how I could have been," said Mrs. Frederick—truthfully enough.

"The worst feature of the 事例／患者 is that that Snaith scoundrel is always hanging around Roaring Abel's, said Uncle James. "I shall be thankful if nothing worse comes of this mad freak than a few weeks at Roaring Abel's. Cissy Gay can't live much longer."

"And she didn't even take her flannel petticoat!" lamented Cousin Stickles.

"I'll see Ambrose 沼 again about this," said Uncle Benjamin—meaning Valancy, not the flannel petticoat.

"I'll see Lawyer Ferguson," said Uncle James.

"一方／合間," 追加するd Uncle Benjamin, "let us be 静める."

CHAPTER XVI

Valancy had walked out to Roaring Abel's house on the Mistawis road under a sky of purple and amber, with a queer exhilaration and 見込み in her heart. 支援する there, behind her, her mother and Cousin Stickles were crying—over themselves, not over her. But here the 勝利，勝つd was in her 直面する, soft, dew-wet, 冷静な／正味の, blowing along the grassy roads. Oh, she loved the 勝利，勝つd! The コマドリs were whistling sleepily in the モミs along the way and the moist 空気／公表する was fragrant with the 強い味 of balsam. Big cars went purring past in the violet dusk—the stream of summer tourists to Muskoka had already begun—but Valancy did not envy any of their occupants. Muskoka cottages might be charming, but beyond, in the sunset skies, の中で the spires of the モミs, her Blue 城 towered. She 小衝突d the old years and habits and inhibitions away from her like dead leaves. She would not be littered with them.

Roaring Abel's rambling, 宙返り／暴落する-負かす／撃墜する old house was 据えるd about three miles from the village, on the very 辛勝する／優位 of "up 支援する," as the sparsely settled, hilly, wooded country around Mistawis was called vernacularly. It did not, it must be 自白するd, look much like a Blue 城.

It had once been a snug place enough in the days when Abel Gay had been young and 繁栄する, and the punning, arched 調印する over the gate—"A. Gay, Carpenter," had been 罰金 and freshly painted. Now it was a faded, dreary old place, with a leprous, patched roof and shutters hanging askew. Abel never seemed to do any carpenter 職業s about his own house. It had a listless 空気／公表する, as if tired of life. There was a dwindling grove of ragged, crone-like old spruces behind it. The garden, which Cissy used to keep neat and pretty, had run wild. On two 味方するs of the house were fields 十分な of nothing but mulleins. Behind the house was a long stretch of useless barrens, 十分な of scrub pines and spruces, with here and there a blossoming bit of wild cherry, running 支援する to a belt of 木材／素質 on the shores of Lake Mistawis, two miles away. A rough, rocky, 玉石-strewn 小道／航路 ran through it to the 支持を得ようと努めるd—a 小道／航路 white with pestiferous, beautiful daisies.

Roaring Abel met Valancy at the door.

"So you've come," he said incredulously. "I never s'提起する／ポーズをとるd that ruck of Stirlings would let you."

Valancy showed all her pointed teeth in a grin.

"They couldn't stop me."

"I didn't think you'd so much 勇気," said Roaring Abel admiringly. "And look at the nice ankles of her," he 追加するd, as he stepped aside to let her in.

If Cousin Stickles had heard this she would have been 確かな that Valancy's doom, earthly and unearthly, was 調印（する）d. But Abel's superannuated gallantry did not worry Valancy. Besides, this was the first compliment she had ever received in her life and she 設立する herself liking it. She いつかs 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd she had nice ankles, but nobody had ever について言及するd it before. In the Stirling 一族／派閥 ankles were の中で the unmentionables.

Roaring Abel took her into the kitchen, where Cissy Gay was lying on the sofa, breathing quickly, with little scarlet 位置／汚点／見つけ出すs on her hollow cheeks. Valancy had not seen Cecilia Gay for years. Then she had been such a pretty creature, a slight blossom-like girl, with soft, golden hair, （疑いを）晴らす-削減（する）, almost waxen features, and large, beautiful blue 注目する，もくろむs. She was shocked at the change in her. Could this be 甘い Cissy—this pitiful little thing that looked like a tired broken flower? She had wept all the beauty out of her 注目する，もくろむs; they looked too big—enormous—in her wasted 直面する. The last time Valancy had seen Cecilia Gay those faded, piteous 注目する，もくろむs had been limpid, shadowy blue pools aglow with mirth. The contrast was so terrible that Valancy's own 注目する，もくろむs filled with 涙／ほころびs. She knelt 負かす／撃墜する by Cissy and put her 武器 about her.

"Cissy dear, I've come to look after you. I'll stay with you till—till—as long as you want me."

"Oh!" Cissy put her thin 武器 about Valancy's neck. "Oh—will you? It's been so—lonely. I can wait on myself—but it's been so lonely. It—would just be like—heaven—to have some one here—like you. You were always—so 甘い to me—long ago."

Valancy held Cissy の近くに. She was suddenly happy. Here was some one who needed her—some one she could help. She was no longer a superfluity. Old things had passed away; everything had become new.

"Most things are predestinated, but some are just darn sheer luck," said Roaring Abel, complacently smoking his 麻薬を吸う in the corner.

CHAPTER XVII

When Valancy had lived for a week at Roaring Abel's she felt as if years had separated her from her old life and all the people she had known in it. They were beginning to seem remote—dream-like—far-away—and as the days went on they seemed still more so, until they 中止するd to 事柄 altogether.

She was happy. Nobody ever bothered her with conundrums or 主張するd on giving her Purple Pills. Nobody called her Doss or worried her about catching 冷淡な. There were no quilts to piece, no abominable rubber-工場／植物 to water, no ice-冷淡な maternal tantrums to 耐える. She could be alone whenever she liked, go to bed when she liked, sneeze when she liked. In the long, wondrous, northern twilights, when Cissy was asleep and Roaring Abel away, she could sit for hours on the 不安定な 支援する verandah steps, looking out over the barrens to the hills beyond, covered with their 罰金, purple bloom, listening to the friendly 勝利，勝つd singing wild, 甘い melodies in the little spruces, and drinking in the aroma of the sunned grasses, until 不明瞭 flowed over the landscape like a 冷静な／正味の, welcome wave.

いつかs of an afternoon, when Cissy was strong enough, the two girls went into the barrens and looked at the 支持を得ようと努めるd-flowers. But they did not 選ぶ any. Valancy had read to Cissy the gospel thereof によれば John Foster: "It is a pity to gather 支持を得ようと努めるd-flowers. They lose half their witchery away from the green and the flicker. The way to enjoy 支持を得ようと努めるd-flowers is to 跡をつける them 負かす／撃墜する to their remote haunts—gloat over them—and then leave them with backward ちらりと見ることs, taking with us only the beguiling memory of their grace and fragrance."

Valancy was in the 中央 of realities after a lifetime of unrealities. And busy—very busy. The house had to be cleaned. Not for nothing had Valancy been brought up in the Stirling habits of neatness and cleanliness. If she 設立する satisfaction in きれいにする dirty rooms she got her fill of it there. Roaring Abel thought she was foolish to bother doing so much more than she was asked to do, but he did not 干渉する with her. He was very 井戸／弁護士席 満足させるd with his 取引. Valancy was a good cook. Abel said she got a flavour into things. The only fault he 設立する with her was that she did not sing at her work.

"Folk should always sing at their work," he 主張するd. "Sounds cheerful-like."

"Not always," retorted Valancy. "Fancy a butcher singing at his work. Or an undertaker."

Abel burst into his 広大な／多数の／重要な 幅の広い laugh.

"There's no getting the better of you. You've got an answer every time. I should think the Stirlings would be glad to be rid of you. They don't like 存在 sassed 支援する."

During the day Abel was 一般に away from home—if not working, then 狙撃 or fishing with Barney Snaith. He 一般に （機の）カム home at nights—always very late and often very drunk. The first night they heard him come howling into the yard, Cissy had told Valancy not to be afraid.

"Father never does anything—he just makes a noise."

Valancy, lying on the sofa in Cissy's room, where she had elected to sleep, lest Cissy should need attention in the night—Cissy would never have called her—was not at all afraid, and said so. By the time Abel had got his horses put away, the roaring 行う／開催する／段階 had passed and he was in his room at the end of the hall crying and praying. Valancy could still hear his dismal moans when she went calmly to sleep. For the most part, Abel was a good-natured creature, but occasionally he had a temper. Once Valancy asked him coolly:

"What is the use of getting in a 激怒（する）?"

"It's such a d——d 救済," said Abel.

They both burst out laughing together.

"You're a 広大な／多数の／重要な little sport," said Abel admiringly. "Don't mind my bad French. I don't mean a thing by it. Jest habit. Say, I like a woman that ain't afraid to speak to me. Sis there was always too meek—too meek. That's why she got 流浪して. I like you."

"All the same," said Valancy determinedly, "there is no use in sending things to hell as you're always doing. And I'm not going to have you 跡をつけるing mud all over a 床に打ち倒す I've just scrubbed. You must use the scraper whether you consign it to perdition or not."

Cissy loved the cleanness and neatness. She had kept it so, too, until her strength failed. She was very pitifully happy because she had Valancy with her. It had been so terrible—the long, lonely days and nights with no companionship save those dreadful old women who （機の）カム to work. Cissy had hated and 恐れるd them. She clung to Valancy like a child.

There was no 疑問 that Cissy was dying. Yet at no time did she seem alarmingly ill. She did not even cough a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定. Most days she was able to get up and dress—いつかs even to work about in the garden or the barrens for an hour or two. For a few weeks after Valancy's coming she seemed so much better that Valancy began to hope she might get 井戸／弁護士席. But Cissy shook her 長，率いる.

"No, I can't get 井戸／弁護士席. My 肺s are almost gone. And I—don't want to. I'm so tired, Valancy. Only dying can 残り／休憩（する） me. But it's lovely to have you here—you'll never know how much it means to me. But Valancy—you work too hard. You don't need to—Father only wants his meals cooked. I don't think you are strong yourself. You turn so pale いつかs. And those 減少（する）s you take. Are you 井戸／弁護士席, dear?"

"I'm all 権利," said Valancy lightly. She would not have Cissy worried. "And I'm not working hard. I'm glad to have some work to do—something that really wants to be done."

"Then"—Cissy slipped her 手渡す wistfully into Valancy's—"don't let's talk any more about my 存在 sick. Let's just forget it. Let's pretend I'm a little girl again—and you have come here to play with me. I used to wish that long ago—wish that you could come. I knew you couldn't, of course. But how I did wish it! You always seemed so different from the other girls—so 肉親，親類d and 甘い—and as if you had something in yourself nobody knew about—some dear, pretty secret. Had you, Valancy?"

"I had my Blue 城," said Valancy, laughing a little. She was pleased that Cissy had thought of her like this. She had never 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd that anybody liked or admired or wondered about her. She told Cissy all about her Blue 城. She had never told any one about it before.

"Every one has a Blue 城, I think," said Cissy softly. "Only every one has a different 指名する for it. I had 地雷—once."

She put her two thin little 手渡すs over her 直面する. She did not tell Valancy—then—who had destroyed her Blue 城. But Valancy knew that, whoever it was, it was not Barney Snaith.

CHAPTER XVIII

Valancy was 熟知させるd with Barney by now—井戸／弁護士席 熟知させるd, it seemed, though she had spoken to him only a few times. But then she had felt just 同様に 熟知させるd with him the first time they had met. She had been in the garden at twilight, 追跡（する）ing for a few stalks of white narcissus for Cissy's room when she heard that terrible old Grey Slosson coming 負かす／撃墜する through the 支持を得ようと努めるd from Mistawis—one could hear it miles away. Valancy did not look up as it drew 近づく, 強くたたくing over the 激しく揺するs in that crazy 小道／航路. She had never looked up, though Barney had gone racketting past every evening since she had been at Roaring Abel's. This time he did not ゆすり past. The old Grey Slosson stopped with even more terrible noises than it made going. Valancy was conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his 直面する. Their 注目する，もくろむs met—Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious 証拠不十分. Was one of her heart attacks coming on?—But this was a new symptom.

His 注目する，もくろむs, which she had always thought brown, now seen の近くに, were 深い violet—translucent and 激しい. Neither of his eyebrows looked like the other. He was thin—too thin—she wished she could 料金d him up a bit—she wished she could sew the buttons on his coat—and make him 削減（する） his hair—and shave every day. There was something in his 直面する—one hardly knew what it was. Tiredness? Sadness? Disillusionment? He had dimples in his thin cheeks when he smiled. All these thoughts flashed through Valancy's mind in that one moment while his 注目する，もくろむs looked into hers.

"Good-evening, 行方不明になる Stirling."

Nothing could be more commonplace and 従来の. Any one might have said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of 説 things that gave them poignancy. When he said good-evening you felt that it was a good evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt all this ばく然と, but she couldn't imagine why she was trembling from 長，率いる to foot—it must be her heart. If only he didn't notice it!

"I'm going over to the Port," Barney was 説. "Can I acquire 長所 by getting or doing anything there for you or Cissy?"

"Will you get some salt codfish for us?" said Valancy. It was the only thing she could think of. Roaring Abel had 表明するd a 願望（する） that day for a dinner of boiled salt codfish. When her knights （機の）カム riding to the Blue 城, Valancy had sent them on many a 追求（する），探索（する）, but she had never asked any of them to get her salt codfish.

"Certainly. You're sure there's nothing else? Lots of room in Lady Jane Grey Slosson. And she always gets 支援する some time, does Lady Jane."

"I don't think there's anything more," said Valancy. She knew he would bring oranges for Cissy anyhow—he always did.

Barney did not turn away at once. He was silent for a little. Then he said, slowly and whimsically:

"行方不明になる Stirling, you're a brick! You're a whole cartload of bricks. To come here and look after Cissy—under the circumstances."

"There's nothing so bricky about that," said Valancy. "I'd nothing else to do. And—I like it here. I don't feel as if I'd done anything 特に meritorious. Mr. Gay is 支払う／賃金ing me fair 給料. I never earned any money before—and I like it." It seemed so 平易な to talk to Barney Snaith, someway—this terrible Barney Snaith of the lurid tales and mysterious past—as 平易な and natural as if talking to herself.

"All the money in the world couldn't buy what you're doing for Cissy Gay," said Barney. "It's splendid and 罰金 of you. And if there's anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to let me know. If Roaring Abel ever tries to annoy you—"

"He doesn't. He's lovely to me. I like Roaring Abel," said Valancy 率直に.

"So do I. But there's one 行う／開催する／段階 of his drunkenness—perhaps you 港／避難所't 遭遇（する）d it yet—when he sings ribald songs—"

"Oh, yes. He （機の）カム home last night like that. Cissy and I just went to our room and shut ourselves in where we couldn't hear him. He apologised this morning. I'm not afraid of any of Roaring Abel's 行う／開催する／段階s."

"井戸／弁護士席, I'm sure he'll be decent to you, apart from his inebriated yowls," said Barney. "And I've told him he's got to stop damning things when you're around."

"Why?" asked Valancy slyly, with one of her 半端物, slanted ちらりと見ることs and a sudden flake of pink on each cheek, born of the thought that Barney Snaith had 現実に done so much for her. "I often feel like damning things myself."

For a moment Barney 星／主役にするd. Was this elfin girl the little, old-maidish creature who had stood there two minutes ago? Surely there was 魔法 and devilry going on in that shabby, weedy old garden.

Then he laughed.

"It will be 救済 to have some one to do it for you, then. So you don't want anything but salt codfish?"

"Not tonight. But I dare say I'll have some errands for you very often when you go to Port Lawrence. I can't 信用 Mr. Gay to remember to bring all the things I want."

Barney had gone away, then, in his Lady Jane, and Valancy stood in the garden for a long time.

Since then he had called several times, walking 負かす／撃墜する through the barrens, whistling. How that whistle of his echoed through the spruces on those June twilights! Valancy caught herself listening for it every evening—rebuked herself—then let herself go. Why shouldn't she listen for it?

He always brought Cissy fruit and flowers. Once he brought Valancy a box of candy—the first box of candy she had ever been given. It seemed sacrilege to eat it.

She 設立する herself thinking of him in season and out of season. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know if he ever thought about her when she wasn't before his 注目する，もくろむs, and, if so, what. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 to see that mysterious house of his 支援する on the Mistawis island. Cissy had never seen it. Cissy, though she talked 自由に of Barney and had known him for five years, really knew little more of him than Valancy herself.

"But he isn't bad," said Cissy. "Nobody need ever tell me he is. He can't have done a thing to be ashamed of."

"Then why does he live as he does?" asked Valancy—to hear somebody defend him.

"I don't know. He's a mystery. And of course there's something behind it, but I know it isn't 不名誉. Barney Snaith 簡単に couldn't do anything disgraceful, Valancy."

Valancy was not so sure. Barney must have done something—いつか. He was a man of education and 知能. She had soon discovered that, in listening to his conversations and 口論する人s with Roaring Abel—who was surprisingly 井戸／弁護士席 read and could discuss any 支配する under the sun when sober. Such a man wouldn't bury himself for five years in Muskoka and live and look like a tramp if there were not too good—or bad—a 推論する／理由 for it. But it didn't 事柄. All that 事柄d was that she was sure now that he had never been Cissy Gay's lover. There was nothing like that between them. Though he was very fond of Cissy and she of him, as any one could see. But it was a fondness that didn't worry Valancy.

"You don't know what Barney has been to me, these past two years," Cissy had said 簡単に. "Everything would have been unbearable without him."

"Cissy Gay is the sweetest girl I ever knew—and there's a man somewhere I'd like to shoot if I could find him," Barney had said savagely.

Barney was an 利益／興味ing talker, with a knack of telling a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 about his adventures and nothing at all about himself. There was one glorious 雨の day when Barney and Abel swapped yarns all the afternoon while Valancy mended tablecloths and listened. Barney told weird tales of his adventures with "shacks" on trains while hoboing it across the continent. Valancy thought she せねばならない think his stealing rides やめる dreadful, but didn't. The story of his working his way to England on a cattle-ship sounded more 合法的. And his yarns of the Yukon enthralled her—特に the one of the night he was lost on the divide between the Gold Run and Sulphur Valley. He had spent two years out there. Where in all this was there room for the 刑務所 and the other things?

If he were telling the truth. But Valancy knew he was.

"設立する no gold," he said. "（機の）カム away poorer than when I went. But such a place to live! Those silences at the 支援する of the north 勝利，勝つd got me. I've never belonged to myself since."

Yet he was not a 広大な／多数の／重要な talker. He told a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 in a few 井戸／弁護士席-chosen words—how 井戸／弁護士席-chosen Valancy did not realise. And he had a knack of 説 things without 開始 his mouth at all.

"I like a man whose 注目する，もくろむs say more than his lips," thought Valancy.

But then she liked everything about him—his tawny hair—his whimsical smiles—the little glints of fun in his 注目する，もくろむs—his loyal affection for that unspeakable Lady Jane—his habit of sitting with his 手渡すs in his pockets, his chin sunk on his breast, looking up from under his mismated eyebrows. She liked his nice 発言する／表明する which sounded as if it might become caressing or 支持を得ようと努めるing with very little 誘発. She was at times almost afraid to let herself think these thoughts. They were so vivid that she felt as if the others must know what she was thinking.

"I've been watching a キツツキ all day," he said one evening on the 不安定な old 支援する verandah. His account of the キツツキ's doings was 満足させるing. He had often some gay or cunning little anecdote of the 支持を得ようと努めるd folk to tell them. And いつかs he and Roaring Abel smoked ひどく the whole evening and never said a word, while Cissy lay in the hammock swung between the verandah 地位，任命するs and Valancy sat idly on the steps, her 手渡すs clasped over her 膝s, and wondered dreamily if she were really Valancy Stirling and if it were only three weeks since she had left the ugly old house on Elm Street.

The barrens lay before her in a white moon splendour, where dozens of little rabbits frisked. Barney, when he liked, could sit 負かす／撃墜する on the 辛勝する／優位 of the barrens and 誘惑する those rabbits 権利 to him by some mysterious sorcery he 所有するd. Valancy had once seen a squirrel leap from a scrub pine to his shoulder and sit there chattering to him. It reminded her of John Foster.

It was one of the delights of Valancy's new life that she could read John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs as often and as long as she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. She read them all to Cissy, who loved them. She also tried to read them to Abel and Barney, who did not love them. Abel was bored and Barney politely 辞退するd to listen at all.

"Piffle," said Barney.

CHAPTER XIX

Of course, the Stirlings had not left the poor maniac alone all this time or 差し控えるd from heroic 成果／努力s to 救助（する） her 死なせる／死ぬing soul and 評判. Uncle James, whose lawyer had helped him as little as his doctor, （機の）カム one day and, finding Valancy alone in the kitchen, as he supposed, gave her a terrible talking to—told her she was breaking her mother's heart and 不名誉ing her family.

"But why?" said Valancy, not 中止するing to scour her porridge マリファナ decently. "I'm doing honest work for honest 支払う／賃金. What is there in that that is disgraceful?"

"Don't quibble, Valancy," said Uncle James solemnly. "This is no fit place for you to be, and you know it. Why, I'm told that that 刑務所，拘置所-bird, Snaith, is hanging around here every evening."

"Not every evening," said Valancy reflectively. "No, not やめる every evening."

"It's—it's insufferable!" said Uncle James violently. "Valancy, you must come home. We won't 裁判官 you 厳しく. I 保証する you we won't. We will overlook all this."

"Thank you," said Valancy.

"Have you no sense of shame?" 需要・要求するd Uncle James.

"Oh, yes. But the things I am ashamed of are not the things you are ashamed of." Valancy proceeded to rinse her dishcloth meticulously.

Still was Uncle James 患者. He gripped the 味方するs of his 議長，司会を務める and ground his teeth.

"We know your mind isn't just 権利. We'll make allowances. But you must come home. You shall not stay here with that drunken, blasphemous old scoundrel—"

"Were you by any chance referring to me, Mister Stirling?" 需要・要求するd Roaring Abel, suddenly appearing in the doorway of the 支援する verandah where he had been smoking a 平和的な 麻薬を吸う and listening to "old Jim Stirling's" tirade with 抱擁する enjoyment. His red 耐えるd 公正に／かなり bristled with indignation and his 抱擁する eyebrows quivered. But cowardice was not の中で James Stirling's shortcomings.

"I was. And, その上に, I want to tell you that you have 行為／法令／行動するd an iniquitous part in 誘惑するing this weak and unfortunate girl away from her home and friends, and I will have you punished yet for it—"

James Stirling got no その上の. Roaring Abel crossed the kitchen at a bound, caught him by his collar and his trousers, and 投げつけるd him through the doorway and over the garden paling with as little 明らかな 成果／努力 as he might have 雇うd in 素早い行動ing a troublesome kitten out of the way.

"The next time you come 支援する here," he bellowed, "I'll throw you through the window—and all the better if the window is shut! Coming here, thinking yourself God to put the world to 権利s!"

Valancy candidly and unashamedly owned to herself that she had seen few more 満足させるing sights than Uncle James' coat-tails 飛行機で行くing out into the asparagus bed. She had once been afraid of this man's judgment. Now she saw 明確に that he was nothing but a rather stupid little village tin-god.

Roaring Abel turned with his 広大な／多数の／重要な 幅の広い laugh.

"He'll think of that for years when he wakes up in the night. The Almighty made a mistake in making so many Stirlings. But since they are made, we've got to reckon with them. Too many to kill out. But if they come here bothering you I'll shoo 'em off before a cat could lick its ear."

The next time they sent Dr. 立ち往生させるing. Surely Roaring Abel would not throw him into asparagus beds. Dr. 立ち往生させるing was not so sure of this and had no 広大な／多数の／重要な liking for the 仕事. He did not believe Valancy Stirling was out of her mind. She had always been queer. He, Dr. 立ち往生させるing, had never been able to understand her. Therefore, beyond 疑問, she was queer. She was only just a little queerer than usual now. And Dr. 立ち往生させるing had his own 推論する／理由s for disliking Roaring Abel. When Dr. 立ち往生させるing had first come to Deerwood he had had a liking for long 引き上げ（る）s around Mistawis and Muskoka. On one of these occasions he had got lost and after much wandering had fallen in with Roaring Abel with his gun over his shoulder.

Dr. 立ち往生させるing had contrived to ask his question in about the most idiotic manner possible. He said, "Can you tell me where I'm going?"

"How the devil should I know where you're going, gosling?" retorted Abel contemptuously.

Dr. 立ち往生させるing was so enraged that he could not speak for a moment or two and in that moment Abel had disappeared in the 支持を得ようと努めるd. Dr. 立ち往生させるing had 結局 設立する his way home, but he had never hankered to 遭遇（する） Abel Gay again.

にもかかわらず he （機の）カム now to do his 義務. Valancy 迎える／歓迎するd him with a 沈むing heart. She had to own to herself that she was terribly afraid of Dr. 立ち往生させるing still. She had a 哀れな 有罪の判決 that if he shook his long, bony finger at her and told her to go home, she dared not disobey.

"Mr. Gay," said Dr. 立ち往生させるing politely and condescendingly, "may I see 行方不明になる Stirling alone for a few minutes?" Roaring Abel was a little drunk—just drunk enough to be 過度に polite and very cunning. He had been on the point of going away when Dr. 立ち往生させるing arrived, but now he sat 負かす／撃墜する in a corner of the parlour and 倍のd his 武器.

"No, no, mister," he said solemnly. "That wouldn't do—wouldn't do at all. I've got the 評判 of my 世帯 to keep up. I've got to chaperone this young lady. Can't have any sparkin' going on here behind my 支援する."

乱暴／暴力を加えるd Dr. 立ち往生させるing looked so terrible that Valancy wondered how Abel could 耐える his 面. But Abel was not worried at all.

"D'ye know anything about it, anyway?" he asked genially.

"About what?"

"誘発するing," said Abel coolly.

Poor Dr. 立ち往生させるing, who had never married because he believed in a celibate clergy, would not notice this ribald 発言／述べる. He turned his 支援する on Abel and 演説（する）／住所d himself to Valancy.

"行方不明になる Stirling, I am here in 返答 to your mother's wishes. She begged me to come. I am 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金d with some messages from her. Will you"—he wagged his forefinger—"will you hear them?"

"Yes," said Valancy faintly, 注目する，もくろむing the forefinger. It had a hypnotic 影響 on her.

"The first is this. If you will leave this—this—"

"House," interjected Roaring Abel. "H-o-u-s-e. Troubled with an 妨害 in your speech, ain't you, Mister?"

"—this place and return to your home, Mr. James Stirling will himself 支払う／賃金 for a good nurse to come here and wait on 行方不明になる Gay."

支援する of her terror Valancy smiled in secret. Uncle James must indeed regard the 事柄 as desperate when he would 緩和する his purse-strings like that. At any 率, her 一族／派閥 no longer despised her or ignored her. She had become important to them.

"That's my 商売／仕事, Mister," said Abel. "行方不明になる Stirling can go if she pleases, or stay if she pleases. I made a fair 取引 with her, and she's 解放する／自由な to 結論する it when she likes. She gives me meals that stick to my ribs. She don't forget to put salt in the porridge. She never 激突するs doors, and when she has nothing to say she don't talk. That's uncanny in a woman, you know, Mister. I'm 満足させるd. If she isn't, she's 解放する／自由な to go. But no woman comes here in Jim Stirling's 支払う／賃金. If any one does"—Abel's 発言する／表明する was uncannily bland and polite—"I'll spatter the road with her brains. Tell him that with A. Gay's compliments."

"Dr. 立ち往生させるing, a nurse is not what Cissy needs," said Valancy 真面目に. "She isn't so ill as that, yet. What she wants is companionship—somebody she knows and likes just to live with her. You can understand that, I'm sure."

"I understand that your 動機 is やめる—ahem—commendable." Dr. 立ち往生させるing felt that he was very 幅の広い-minded indeed—特に as in his secret soul he did not believe Valancy's 動機 was commendable. He hadn't the least idea what she was up to, but he was sure her 動機 was not commendable. When he could not understand a thing he straightway 非難するd it. 簡単 itself! "But your first 義務 is to your mother. She needs you. She implores you to come home—she will 許す everything if you will only come home."

"That's a pretty little thought," 発言／述べるd Abel meditatively, as he ground some タバコ up in his 手渡す.

Dr. 立ち往生させるing ignored him.

"She entreats, but I, 行方不明になる Stirling,"—Dr. 立ち往生させるing remembered that he was an 外交官／大使 of Jehovah—"I 命令（する）. As your 牧師 and spiritual guide, I 命令（する） you to come home with me—this very day. Get your hat and coat and come now."

Dr. 立ち往生させるing shook his finger at Valancy. Before that pitiless finger she drooped and wilted visibly.

"She's giving in," thought Roaring Abel. "She'll go with him. （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域s all, the 力／強力にする these preacher fellows have over women."

Valancy was on the point of obeying Dr. 立ち往生させるing. She must go home with him—and give up. She would lapse 支援する to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been. It was her 運命／宿命—typified by that relentless, uplifted forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his predestination. She 注目する，もくろむd it as the fascinated bird 注目する，もくろむs the snake. Another moment—

"恐れる is the 初めの sin," suddenly said a still, small 発言する／表明する away 支援する—支援する—支援する of Valancy's consciousness. "Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something."

Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of 恐れる, but her soul was her own again. She would not be 誤った to that inner 発言する／表明する.

"Dr. 立ち往生させるing," she said slowly, "I do not at 現在の 借りがある any 義務 to my mother. She is やめる 井戸／弁護士席; she has all the 援助 and companionship she 要求するs; she does not need me at all. I am needed here. I am going to stay here."

"There's 勇気 for you," said Roaring Abel admiringly.

Dr. 立ち往生させるing dropped his forefinger. One could not keep on shaking a finger forever.

"行方不明になる Stirling, is there nothing that can 影響（力） you? Do you remember your childhood days—"

"Perfectly. And hate them."

"Do you realise what people will say? What they are 説?"

"I can imagine it," said Valancy, with a shrug of her shoulders. She was suddenly 解放する／自由な of 恐れる again. "I 港／避難所't listened to the gossip of Deerwood teaparties and sewing circles twenty years for nothing. But, Dr. 立ち往生させるing, it doesn't 事柄 in the least to me what they say—not in the least."

Dr. 立ち往生させるing went away then. A girl who cared nothing for public opinion! Over whom sacred family 関係 had no 抑制するing 影響（力）! Who hated her childhood memories!

Then Cousin Georgiana （機の）カム—on her own 率先, for nobody would have thought it 価値（がある） while to send her. She 設立する Valancy alone, weeding the little vegetable garden she had 工場／植物d, and she made all the platitudinous 嘆願s she could think of. Valancy heard her 根気よく. Cousin Georgiana wasn't such a bad old soul. Then she said:

"And now that you have got all that out of your system, Cousin Georgiana, can you tell me how to make creamed codfish so that it will not be as 厚い as porridge and as salt as the Dead Sea?"

* * * * * * * *

"We'll just have to wait," said Uncle Benjamin. "After all, Cissy Gay can't live long. Dr. 沼 tells me she may 減少（する） off any day."

Mrs. Frederick wept. It would really have been so much easier to 耐える if Valancy had died. She could have worn 嘆く／悼むing then.

CHAPTER XX

When Abel gay paid Valancy her first month's 給料—which he did 敏速に, in 法案s reeking with the odour of タバコ and whiskey—Valancy went into Deerwood and spent every cent of it. She got a pretty green crêpe dress with a girdle of crimson beads, at a 取引 sale, a pair of silk stockings, to match, and a little crinkled green hat with a crimson rose in it. She even bought a foolish little beribboned and belaced nightgown.

She passed the house on Elm Street twice—Valancy never even thought about it as "home"—but saw no one. No 疑問 her mother was sitting in the room this lovely June evening playing solitaire—and cheating. Valancy knew that Mrs. Frederick always cheated. She never lost a game. Most of the people Valancy met looked at her 本気で and passed her with a 冷静な／正味の nod. Nobody stopped to speak to her.

Valancy put on her green dress when she got home. Then she took it off again. She felt so miserably undressed in its low neck and short sleeves. And that low, crimson girdle around the hips seemed 前向きに／確かに indecent. She hung it up in the closet, feeling きっぱりと that she had wasted her money. She would never have the courage to wear that dress. John Foster's （被告の）罪状否認 of 恐れる had no 力／強力にする to 強化する her against this. In this one thing habit and custom were still all-powerful. Yet she sighed as she went 負かす／撃墜する to 会合，会う Barney Snaith in her old 消す-brown silk. That green thing had been very becoming—she had seen so much in her one ashamed ちらりと見ること. Above it her 注目する，もくろむs had looked like 半端物 brown jewels and the girdle had given her flat 人物／姿／数字 and 完全に different 外見. She wished she could have left it on. But there were some things John Foster did not know.

Every Sunday evening Valancy went to the little 解放する／自由な Methodist church in a valley on the 辛勝する／優位 of "up 支援する"—a spireless little grey building の中で the pines, with a few sunken 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大なs and mossy gravestones in the small, paling-encircled, grass-grown square beside it. She liked the 大臣 who preached there. He was so simple and sincere. An old man, who lived in Port Lawrence and （機の）カム out by the lake in a little disappearing プロペラ boat to give a 解放する／自由な service to the people of the small, stony farms 支援する of the hills, who would さもなければ never have heard any gospel message. She liked the simple service and the 熱烈な singing. She liked to sit by the open window and look out into the pine 支持を得ようと努めるd. The congregation was always small. The 解放する／自由な Methodists were few in number, poor and 一般に 無学の. But Valancy loved those Sunday evenings. For the first time in her life she liked going to church. The rumour reached Deerwood that she had "turned 解放する／自由な Methodist" and sent Mrs. Frederick to bed for a day. But Valancy had not turned anything. She went to the church because she liked it and because in some inexplicable way it did her good. Old Mr. Towers believed 正確に／まさに what he preached and somehow it made a tremendous difference.

Oddly enough, Roaring Abel disapproved of her going to the hill church as 堅固に as Mrs. Frederick herself could have done. He had "no use for 解放する／自由な Methodists. He was a Presbyterian." But Valancy went in spite of him.

"We'll hear something worse than that about her soon," Uncle Benjamin 予報するd gloomily.

They did.

Valancy could not やめる explain, even to herself, just why she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go to that party. It was a dance "up 支援する" at Chidley Corners; and dances at Chidley Corners were not, as a 支配する, the sort of 議会s where 井戸／弁護士席-brought-up young ladies were 設立する. Valancy knew it was coming off, for Roaring Abel had been engaged as one of the fiddlers.

But the idea of going had never occurred to her until Roaring Abel himself broached it at supper.

"You come with me to the dance," he ordered. "It'll do you good—put some colour in your 直面する. You look 頂点（に達する）d—you want something to liven you up."

Valancy 設立する herself suddenly wanting to go. She knew nothing at all of what dances at Chidley Corners were apt to be like. Her idea of dances had been fashioned on the 訂正する 事件／事情／状勢s that went by that 指名する in Deerwood and Port Lawrence. Of course she knew the Corners' dance wouldn't be just like them. Much more informal, of course. But so much the more 利益／興味ing. Why shouldn't she go? Cissy was in a week of 明らかな health and 改良. She wouldn't mind staying alone in the least. She entreated Valancy to go if she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. And Valancy did want to go.

She went to her room to dress. A 激怒（する） against the 消す-brown silk 掴むd her. Wear that to a party! Never. She pulled her green crêpe from its hanger and put in on feverishly. It was nonsense to feel so—so—naked—just because her neck and 武器 were 明らかにする. That was just her old maidishness. She would not be ridden by it. On went the dress—the slippers.

It was the first time she had worn a pretty dress since the organdies of her 早期に teens. And they had never made her look like this.

If she only had a necklace or something. She wouldn't feel so 明らかにする then. She ran 負かす／撃墜する to the garden. There were clovers there—広大な／多数の／重要な crimson things growing in the long grass. Valancy gathered handfuls of them and strung them on a cord. Fastened above her neck they gave her the comfortable sensation of a collar and were oddly becoming. Another circlet of them went 一連の会議、交渉／完成する her hair, dressed in the low puffs that became her. Excitement brought those faint pink stains to her 直面する. She flung on her coat and pulled the little, twisty hat over her hair.

"You look so nice and—and—different, dear," said Cissy. "Like a green moonbeam with a gleam of red in it, if there could be such a thing."

Valancy stooped to kiss her.

"I don't feel 権利 about leaving you alone, Cissy."

"Oh, I'll be all 権利. I feel better tonight than I have for a long while. I've been feeling 不正に to see you sticking here so closely on my account. I hope you'll have a nice time. I never was at a party at the Corners, but I used to go いつかs, long ago, to dances up 支援する. We always had good times. And you needn't be afraid of Father 存在 drunk tonight. He never drinks when he engages to play for a party. But—there may be—アルコール飲料. What will you do if it gets rough?"

"Nobody would （性的に）いたずらする me."

"Not 本気で, I suppose. Father would see to that. But it might be noisy and—and unpleasant."

"I won't mind. I'm only going as a looker-on. I don't 推定する／予想する to dance. I just want to see what a party up 支援する is like. I've never seen anything except decorous Deerwood."

Cissy smiled rather dubiously. She knew much better than Valancy what a party "up 支援する" might be like if there should be アルコール飲料. But again there mightn't be.

"I hope you'll enjoy it," she repeated.

Valancy enjoyed the 運動 there. They went 早期に, for it was twelve miles to Chidley Corners, and they had to go in Abel's old, ragged 最高の，を越す-buggy. The road was rough and rocky, like most Muskoka roads, but 十分な of the 厳格な，質素な charm of northern 支持を得ようと努めるd. It 負傷させる through beautiful, purring pines that were 階級s of enchantment in the June sunset, and over the curious jade-green rivers of Muskoka, fringed by aspens that were always quivering with some supernal joy.

Roaring Abel was excellent company, too. He knew all the stories and legends of the wild, beautiful "up 支援する," and he told them to Valancy as they drove along. Valancy had several fits of inward laughter over what Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Wellington, et al., would feel and think and say if they saw her 運動ing with Roaring Abel in that terrible buggy to a dance at Chidley Corners.

At first the dance was 静かな enough, and Valancy was amused and entertained. She even danced twice herself, with a couple of nice "up 支援する" boys who danced beautifully and told her she did, too.

Another compliment （機の）カム her way—not a very subtle one, perhaps, but Valancy had had too few compliments in her life to be over-nice on that point. She overheard two of the "up 支援する" young men talking about her in the dark "lean-to" behind her.

"Know who that girl in green is?"

"Nope. Guess she's from out 前線. The Port, maybe. Got a stylish look to her."

"No beaut but 削減（する）-looking, I'll say. 'Jever see such 注目する，もくろむs?"

The big room was decorated with pine and モミ boughs, and lighted by Chinese lanterns. The 床に打ち倒す was waxed, and Roaring Abel's fiddle, purring under his 技術d touch, worked 魔法. The "up 支援する" girls were pretty and prettily dressed. Valancy thought it the nicest party she had ever …に出席するd.

By eleven o'clock she had changed her mind. A new （人が）群がる had arrived—a （人が）群がる unmistakably drunk. Whiskey began to 循環させる 自由に. Very soon almost all the men were partly drunk. Those in the porch and outside around the door began howling "come-all-ye's" and continued to howl them. The room grew noisy and reeking. Quarrels started up here and there. Bad language and obscene songs were heard. The girls, swung rudely in the dances, became dishevelled and tawdry. Valancy, alone in her corner, was feeling disgusted and repentant. Why had she ever come to such a place? Freedom and independence were all very 井戸／弁護士席, but one should not be a little fool. She might have known what it would be like—she might have taken 警告 from Cissy's guarded 宣告，判決s. Her 長，率いる was aching—she was sick of the whole thing. But what could she do? She must stay to the end. Abel could not leave till then. And that would probably be not till three or four in the morning.

The new influx of boys had left the girls far in the 少数，小数派 and partners were 不十分な. Valancy was pestered with 招待s to dance. She 辞退するd them all すぐに, and some of her 拒絶s were not 井戸／弁護士席 taken. There were muttered 誓いs and sullen looks. Across the room she saw a group of the strangers talking together and ちらりと見ることing meaningly at her. What were they plotting?

It was at this moment that she saw Barney Snaith looking in over the 長，率いるs of the （人が）群がるs at the doorway. Valancy had two 際立った 有罪の判決s—one was that she was やめる 安全な now; the other was that this was why she had 手配中の，お尋ね者 to come to the dance. It had been such an absurd hope that she had not recognised it before, but now she knew she had come because of the 可能性 that Barney might be there, too. She thought that perhaps she ought to be ashamed for this, but she wasn't. After her feeling of 救済 her next feeling was one of annoyance with Barney for coming there unshaved. Surely he might have enough self-尊敬（する）・点 to groom himself up decently when he went to a party. There he was, bareheaded, bristly-chinned, in his old trousers and his blue homespun shirt. Not even a coat. Valancy could have shaken him in her 怒り／怒る. No wonder people believed everything bad of him.

But she was not afraid any longer. One of the whispering group left his comrades and （機の）カム across the room to her, through the whirling couples that now filled it uncomfortably. He was a tall, 幅の広い-shouldered fellow, not ill-dressed or ill-looking but unmistakably half drunk. He asked Valancy to dance. Valancy 拒絶する／低下するd civilly. His 直面する turned livid. He threw his arm about her and pulled her to him. His hot, whiskied breath 燃やすd her 直面する.

"We won't have 罰金-lady 空気／公表するs here, my girl. If you ain't too good to come here you ain't too good to dance with us. Me and my pals have been watching you. You're got to give us each a turn and a kiss その上."

Valancy tried 猛烈に and vainly to 解放する／自由な herself. She was 存在 dragged out into the maze of shouting, stamping, yelling ダンサーs. The next moment the man who held her went staggering across the room from a neatly 工場／植物d blow on the jaw, knocking 負かす／撃墜する whirling couples as he went. Valancy felt her arm しっかり掴むd.

"This way—quick," said Barney Snaith. He swung her out through the open window behind him, 丸天井d lightly over the sill and caught her 手渡す.

"Quick—we must run for it—they'll be after us."

Valancy ran as she had never run before, 粘着するing tight to Barney's 手渡す, wondering why she did not 減少（する） dead in such a mad scamper. Suppose she did! What a スキャンダル it would make for her poor people. For the first time Valancy felt a little sorry for them. Also, she felt glad that she had escaped from that horrible 列／漕ぐ／騒動. Also, glad that she was 持つ／拘留するing tight to Barney's 手渡す. Her feelings were 不正に mixed and she had never had so many in such a 簡潔な／要約する time in her life.

They finally reached a 静かな corner in the pine 支持を得ようと努めるd. The 追跡 had taken a different direction and the whoops and yells behind them were growing faint. Valancy, out of breath, with a crazily （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing heart, 崩壊（する）d on the trunk of a fallen pine.

"Thanks," she gasped.

"What a goose you were to come to such a place!" said Barney.

"I—didn't—know—it—would—be like this," 抗議するd Valancy.

"You should have known. Chidley Corners!"

"It—was—just—a 指名する—to me."

Valancy knew Barney could not realise how ignorant she was of the 地域s "up 支援する." She had lived in Deerwood all her life and of course he supposed she knew. He didn't know how she had been brought up. There was no use trying to explain.

"When I drifted in at Abel's this evening and Cissy told me you'd come here I was amazed. And downright 脅すd. Cissy told me she was worried about you but hadn't liked to say anything to dissuade you for 恐れる you'd think she was thinking selfishly about herself. So I （機の）カム on up here instead of going to Deerwood."

Valancy felt a sudden delightful glow irradiating soul and 団体／死体 under the dark pines. So he had 現実に come up to look after her.

"As soon as they stop 追跡（する）ing for us we'll こそこそ動く around to the Muskoka road. I left Lady Jane 負かす／撃墜する there. I'll take you home. I suppose you've had enough of your party."

"やめる," said Valancy meekly. The first half of the way home neither of them said anything. It would not have been much use. Lady Jane made so much noise they could not have heard each other. Anyway, Valancy did not feel conversationally inclined. She was ashamed of the whole 事件／事情／状勢—ashamed of her folly in going—ashamed of 存在 設立する in such a place by Barney Snaith. By Barney Snaith, という評判の 刑務所，拘置所-breaker, infidel, forger and defaulter. Valancy's lips twitched in the 不明瞭 as she thought of it. But she was ashamed.

And yet she was enjoying herself—was 十分な of a strange exultation—bumping over that rough road beside Barney Snaith. The big trees 発射 by them. The tall mulleins stood up along the road in stiff, 整然とした 階級s like companies of 兵士s. The thistles looked like drunken fairies or tipsy elves as their car-lights passed over them. This was the first time she had even been in a car. After all, she liked it. She was not in the least afraid, with Barney at the wheel. Her spirits rose 速く as they tore along. She 中止するd to feel ashamed. She 中止するd to feel anything except that she was part of a 惑星 急ぐing gloriously through the night of space.

All at once, just where the pine 支持を得ようと努めるd frayed out to the scrub barrens, Lady Jane became 静かな—too 静かな. Lady Jane slowed 負かす／撃墜する 静かに—and stopped.

Barney uttered an aghast exclamation. Got out. 調査／捜査するd. （機の）カム apologetically 支援する.

"I'm a doddering idiot. Out of gas. I knew I was short when I left home, but I meant to fill up in Deerwood. Then I forgot all about it in my hurry to get to the Corners."

"What can we do?" asked Valancy coolly.

"I don't know. There's no gas nearer than Deerwood, nine miles away. And I don't dare leave you here alone. There are always tramps on this road—and some of those crazy fools 支援する at the Corners may come straggling along presently. There were boys there from the Port. As far as I can see, the best thing to do is for us just to sit 根気よく here until some car comes along and lends us enough gas to get to Roaring Abel's with."

"井戸／弁護士席, what's the 事柄 with that?" said Valancy.

"We may have to sit here all night," said Barney.

"I don't mind," said Valancy.

Barney gave a short laugh. "If you don't, I needn't. I 港／避難所't any 評判 to lose."

"Nor I," said Valancy comfortably.

CHAPTER XXI

We'll just sit here," said Barney, "and if we think of anything 価値（がある） while 説 we'll say it. さもなければ, not. Don't imagine you're bound to talk to me."

"John Foster says," 引用するd Valancy, "'If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be 完全に comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.'"

"Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while," 譲歩するd Barney.

They sat in silence for a long while. Little rabbits hopped across the road. Once or twice an フクロウ laughed out delightfully. The road beyond them was fringed with the woven 影をつくる／尾行する lace of trees. Away off to the 南西 the sky was 十分な of silvery little cirrus clouds above the 位置／汚点／見つけ出す where Barney's island must be.

Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things 夜明け on you slowly. Some things come by 雷 flashes. Valancy had had a 雷 flash.

She knew やめる 井戸／弁護士席 now that she loved Barney. Yesterday she had been all her own. Now she was this man's. Yet he had done nothing—said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn't 事柄. Nor did it 事柄 what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any 保留（地）／予約s. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so 絶対 that thought apart from him—thought in which he did not predominate—was an impossibility.

She had realised, やめる 簡単に and fully, that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked 深い into his 注目する，もくろむs in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.

She was no longer unimportant, little old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, 十分な of love and therefore rich and 重要な—正当化するd to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last 恐れる.

Love! What a searing, 拷問ing, intolerably 甘い thing it was—this 所有／入手 of 団体／死体, soul and mind! With something at its 核心 as 罰金 and remote and 純粋に spiritual as the tiny blue 誘発する in the heart of the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no longer 独房監禁. She was one of a 広大な sisterhood—all the women who had ever loved in the world.

Barney need never know it—though she would not in the least have minded his knowing. But she knew it and it made a tremendous difference to her. Just to love! She did not ask to be loved. It was rapture enough just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in the white splendour of moonshine, with the 勝利，勝つd blowing 負かす／撃墜する on them out of the pine 支持を得ようと努めるd. She had always envied the 勝利，勝つd. So 解放する／自由な. Blowing where it 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）d. Through the hills. Over the lakes. What a 強い味, what a zip it had! What a 魔法 of adventure! Valancy felt as if she had 交流d her shop-worn soul for a fresh one, 解雇する／砲火／射撃-new from the workshop of the gods. As far 支援する as she could look, life had been dull—colourless—savourless. Now she had come to a little patch of violets, purple and fragrant—hers for the plucking. No 事柄 who or what had been in Barney's past—no 事柄 who or what might be in his 未来—no one else could ever have this perfect hour. She 降伏するd herself utterly to the charm of the moment.

"Ever dream of ballooning?' said Barney suddenly.

"No," said Valancy.

"I do—often. Dream of sailing through the clouds—seeing the glories of sunset—spending hours in the 中央 of a terrific 嵐／襲撃する with 雷 playing above and below you—skimming above a silver cloud 床に打ち倒す under a 十分な moon—wonderful!"

"It does sound so," said Valancy. "I've stayed on earth in my dreams."

She told him about her Blue 城. It was so 平易な to tell Barney things. One felt he understood everything—even the things you didn't tell him. And then she told him a little of her 存在 before she （機の）カム to Roaring Abel's. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 him to see why she had gone to the dance "up 支援する."

"You see—I've never had any real life," she said. "I've just—breathed. Every door has always been shut to me."

"But you're still young," said Barney.

"Oh, I know. Yes, I'm 'still young'—but that's so different from young," said Valancy 激しく. For a moment she was tempted to tell Barney why her years had nothing to do with her 未来; but she did not. She was not going to think of death tonight.

"Though I never was really young," she went on—"until tonight," she 追加するd in her heart. "I never had a life like other girls. You couldn't understand. Why,"—she had a desperate 願望（する） that Barney should know the worst about her—"I didn't even love my mother. Isn't it awful that I don't love my mother?"

"Rather awful—for her," said Barney drily.

"Oh, she didn't know it. She took my love for 認めるd. And I wasn't any use or 慰安 to her or anybody. I was just a—a—vegetable. And I got tired of it. That's why I （機の）カム to keep house for Mr. Gay and look after Cissy."

"And I suppose your people thought you'd gone mad."

"They did—and do—literally," said Valancy. "But it's a 慰安 to them. They'd rather believe me mad than bad. There's no other 代案／選択肢. But I've been living since I （機の）カム to Mr. Gay's. It's been a delightful experience. I suppose I'll 支払う／賃金 for it when I have to go 支援する—but I'll have had it."

"That's true," said Barney. "If you buy your experience it's your own. So it's no 事柄 how much you 支払う／賃金 for it. Somebody else's experience can never be yours. 井戸／弁護士席, it's a funny old world."

"Do you think it really is old?" asked Valancy dreamily. "I never believe that in June. It seems so young tonight—somehow. In that quivering moonlight—like a young, white girl—waiting."

"Moonlight here on the 瀬戸際 of up 支援する is different from moonlight anywhere else," agreed Barney. "It always makes me feel so clean, somehow—団体／死体 and soul. And of course the age of gold always comes 支援する in spring."

It was ten o'clock now. A dragon of 黒人／ボイコット cloud ate up the moon. The spring 空気／公表する grew 冷気／寒がらせる—Valancy shivered. Barney reached 支援する into the innards of Lady Jane and clawed up an old, タバコ-scented overcoat.

"Put that on," he ordered.

"Don't you want it yourself?" 抗議するd Valancy.

"No. I'm not going to have you catching 冷淡な on my 手渡すs."

"Oh, I won't catch 冷淡な. I 港／避難所't had a 冷淡な since I （機の）カム to Mr. Gay's—though I've done the foolishest things. It's funny, too—I used to have them all the time. I feel so selfish taking your coat."

"You've sneezed three times. No use winding up your 'experience' up 支援する with grippe or 肺炎."

He pulled it up tight about her throat and buttoned it on her. Valancy submitted with secret delight. How nice it was to have some one look after you so! She snuggled 負かす／撃墜する into the tobaccoey 倍のs and wished the night could last forever.

Ten minutes later a car 急襲するd 負かす／撃墜する on them from "up 支援する." Barney sprang from Lady Jane and waved his 手渡す. The car （機の）カム to a stop beside them. Valancy saw Uncle Wellington and Olive gazing at her in horror from it.

So Uncle Wellington had got a car! And he must have been spending the evening up at Mistawis with Cousin Herbert. Valancy almost laughed aloud at the 表現 on his 直面する as he recognised her. The pompous, be-hiskered old humbug!

"Can you let me have enough gas to take me to Deerwood?" Barney was asking politely. But Uncle Wellington was not …に出席するing to him.

"Valancy, how （機の）カム you here!" he said 厳しく.

"By chance or God's grace," said Valancy.

"With this 刑務所，拘置所-bird—at ten o'clock at night!" said Uncle Wellington.

Valancy turned to Barney. The moon had escaped from its dragon and in its light her 注目する，もくろむs were 十分な of deviltry.

"Are you a 刑務所，拘置所-bird?"

"Does it 事柄?" said Barney, gleams of fun in his 注目する，もくろむs.

"Not to me. I only asked out of curiosity," continued Valancy.

"Then I won't tell you. I never 満足させる curiosity." He turned to Uncle Wellington and his 発言する／表明する changed subtly.

"Mr. Stirling, I asked you if you could let me have some gas. If you can, 井戸／弁護士席 and good. If not, we are only 延期するing you unnecessarily."

Uncle Wellington was in a horrible 窮地. To give gas to this shameless pair! But not to give it to them! To go away and leave them there in the Mistawis 支持を得ようと努めるd—until daylight, likely. It was better to give it to them and let them get out of sight before any one else saw them.

"Got anything to get gas in?" he grunted surlily.

Barney produced a two-gallon 手段 from Lady Jane. The two men went to the 後部 of the Stirling car and began manipulating the tap. Valancy stole sly ちらりと見ることs at Olive over the collar of Barney's coat. Olive was sitting grimly 星／主役にするing straight ahead with an 乱暴／暴力を加えるd 表現. She did not mean to take any notice of Valancy. Olive had her own secret 推論する／理由s for feeling 乱暴／暴力を加えるd. Cecil had been in Deerwood lately and of course had heard all about Valancy. He agreed that her mind was changed and was exceedingly anxious to find out whence the derangement had been 相続するd. It was a serious thing to have in the family—a very serious thing. One had to think of one's—子孫s.

"She got it from the Wansbarras," said Olive 前向きに／確かに. "There's nothing like that in the Stirlings—nothing!"

"I hope not—I certainly hope not," Cecil had 答える／応じるd dubiously. "But then—to go out as a servant—for that is what it 事実上 量s to. Your cousin!"

Poor Olive felt the 関わりあい／含蓄. The Port Lawrence Prices were not accustomed to 同盟（する） themselves with families whose members "worked out."

Valancy could not resist 誘惑. She leaned 今後.

"Olive, does it 傷つける?"

Olive bit—stiffly.

"Does what 傷つける?"

"Looking like that."

For a moment Olive 解決するd she would take no その上の notice of Valancy. Then 義務 （機の）カム uppermost. She must not 行方不明になる the 適切な時期.

"Doss," she implored, leaning 今後 also, "won't you come home—come home tonight?"

Valancy yawned.

"You sound like a 復活 会合," she said. "You really do."

"If you will come 支援する—"

"All will be forgiven."

"Yes," said Olive 熱望して. Wouldn't it be splendid if she could induce the prodigal daughter to return? "We'll never cast it up to you. Doss, there are nights when I cannot sleep for thinking of you."

"And me having the time of my life," said Valancy, laughing.

"Doss, I can't believe you're bad. I've always said you couldn't be bad—"

"I don't believe I can be," said Valancy. "I'm afraid I'm hopelessly proper. I've been sitting here for three hours with Barney Snaith and he hasn't even tried to kiss me. I wouldn't have minded if he had, Olive."

Valancy was still leaning 今後. Her little hat with its crimson rose was 攻撃するd 負かす／撃墜する over one 注目する，もくろむs—Valancy's smile—what had happened to Valancy! She looked—not pretty—Doss couldn't be pretty—but 挑発的な, fascinating—yes, abominably so. Olive drew 支援する. It was beneath her dignity to say more. After all, Valancy must be both mad and bad.

"Thanks—that's enough," said Barney behind the car. "Much 強いるd, Mr. Stirling. Two gallons—seventy cents. Thank you."

Uncle Wellington climbed foolishly and feebly into his car. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to give Snaith a piece of his mind, but dared not. Who knew what the creature might do if 刺激するd? No 疑問 he carried 小火器.

Uncle Wellington looked indecisively at Valancy. But Valancy had turned her 支援する on him and was watching Barney 注ぐ the gas into Lady Jane's maw.

"運動 on," said Olive decisively. "There's no use in waiting here. Let me tell you what she said to me."

"The little hussy! The shameless little hussy!" said Uncle Wellington.

CHAPTER XXII

The next thing the Stirlings heard was that Valancy had been seen with Barney Snaith in a movie theatre in Port Lawrence and after it at supper in a Chinese restaurant there. This was やめる true—and no one was more surprised at it than Valancy herself. Barney had come along in Lady Jane one 薄暗い twilight and told Valancy 無作法に if she 手配中の，お尋ね者 a 運動 to hop in.

"I'm going to the Port. Will you go there with me?"

His 注目する，もくろむs were teasing and there was a bit of 反抗 in his 発言する／表明する. Valancy, who did not 隠す from herself that she would have gone anywhere with him to any place, "hopped in" without more ado. They tore into and through Deerwood. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles, taking a little 空気／公表する on the verandah, saw them whirl by in a cloud of dust and sought 慰安 in each other's 注目する，もくろむ. Valancy, who in some 薄暗い pre-存在 had been afraid of a car, was hatless and her hair was blowing wildly 一連の会議、交渉／完成する her 直面する. She would certainly come 負かす／撃墜する with bronchitis—and die at Roaring Abel's. She wore a low-neck dress and her 武器 were 明らかにする. That Snaith creature was in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a 麻薬を吸う. They were going at the 率 of forty miles an hour—sixty, Cousin Stickles averred. Lady Jane could 攻撃する，衝突する the pike when she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. Valancy waved her 手渡す gaily to her 親族s. As for Mrs. Frederick, she was wishing she knew how to go into hysterics.

"Was it for this,'' she 需要・要求するd in hollow トンs, that I 苦しむd the pangs of motherhood?"

"I will not believe," said Cousin Stickles solemnly, "that our 祈りs will not yet be answered."

"Who—who will 保護する that unfortunate girl when I am gone?" moaned Mrs. Frederick.

As for Valancy, she was wondering if it could really be only a few weeks since she had sat there with them on that verandah. Hating the rubberplant. Pestered with teasing questions like 黒人／ボイコット 飛行機で行くs. Always thinking of 外見s. Cowed because of Aunt Wellington's teaspoons and Uncle Benjamin's money. Poverty-stricken. Afraid of everybody. Envying Olive. A slave to moth-eaten traditions. Nothing to hope for or 推定する／予想する.

And now every day was a gay adventure.

Lady Jane flew over the fifteen miles between Deerwood and the Port—through the Port. The way Barney went past traffic policemen was not 宗教上の. The lights were beginning to twinkle out like 星／主役にするs in the （疑いを）晴らす, lemon-hued twilight 空気／公表する. This was the only time Valancy ever really liked the town, and she was crazy with the delight of スピード違反. Was it possible she had ever been afraid of a car? She was perfectly happy, riding beside Barney. Not that she deluded herself into thinking it had any significance. She knew やめる 井戸／弁護士席 that Barney had asked her to go on the impulse of the moment—an impulse born of a feeling of pity for her and her 餓死するd little dreams. She was looking tired after a wakeful night with a heart attack, followed by a busy day. She had so little fun. He'd give her an 遠出 for once. Besides, Abel was in the kitchen, at the point of drunkenness where he was 宣言するing he did not believe in God and beginning to sing ribald songs. It was just as 井戸／弁護士席 she should be out of the way for a while. Barney knew Roaring Abel's repertoire.

They went to the movie—Valancy had never been to a movie. And then, finding a nice hunger upon them, they went and had fried chicken—unbelievable delicious—in the Chinese restaurant. After which they 動揺させるd home again, leaving a 破滅的な 追跡する of スキャンダル behind them. Mrs. Frederick gave up going to church altogether. She could not 耐える her friends' pitying ちらりと見ることs and questions. But Cousin Stickles went every Sunday. She said they had been given a cross to 耐える.

CHAPTER XXIII

On one of Cissy's wakeful nights, she told Valancy her poor little story. They were sitting by the open window. Cissy could not get her breath lying 負かす／撃墜する that night. An inglorious gibbous moon was hanging over the wooded hills and in its spectral light Cissy looked frail and lovely and incredibly young. A child. It did not seem possible that she could have lived through all the passion and 苦痛 and shame of her story.

"He was stopping at the hotel across the lake. He used to come over in his canoe at night—we met in the pines 負かす／撃墜する the shore. He was a young college student—his father was a rich man in Toronto. Oh, Valancy, I didn't mean to be bad—I didn't, indeed. But I loved him so—I love him yet—I'll always love him. And I—didn't know—some things. I didn't understand. Then his father （機の）カム and took him away. And—after a little—I 設立する out—oh, Valancy,—I was so 脅すd. I didn't know what to do. I wrote him—and he （機の）カム. He—he said he would marry me, Valancy."

"And why—and why?—"

"Oh, Valancy, he didn't love me any more. I saw that at a ちらりと見ること. He—he was just 申し込む／申し出ing to marry me because he thought he せねばならない—because he was sorry for me. He wasn't bad—but he was so young—and what was I that he should keep on loving me?"

"Never mind making excuses for him," said Valancy a bit すぐに. "So you wouldn't marry him?''

"I couldn't—not when he didn't love me any more. Somehow—I can't explain—it seemed a worse thing to do than—the other. He—he argued a little—but he went away. Do you think I did 権利, Valancy?"

"Yes, I do. You did 権利. But he—"

"Don't 非難する him, dear. Please don't. Let's not talk about him at all. There's no need. I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to tell you how it was—I didn't want you to think me bad—"

"I never did think so."

"Yes, I felt that—whenever you （機の）カム. Oh, Valancy, what you've been to me! I can never tell you—but God will bless you for it. I know He will—'with what 手段 ye mete.'"

Cissy sobbed for a few minutes in Valancy's 武器. Then she wiped her 注目する，もくろむs.

"井戸／弁護士席, that's almost all. I （機の）カム home. I wasn't really so very unhappy. I suppose I should have been—but I wasn't. Father wasn't hard on me. And my baby was so 甘い, Valancy—with such lovely blue 注目する，もくろむs—and little （犯罪の）一味s of pale gold hair like silk floss—and tiny dimpled 手渡すs. I used to bite his satin-smooth little 直面する all over—softly, so as not to 傷つける him, you know—"

"I know," said Valancy, wincing. "I know—a woman always knows—and dreams—"

"And he was all 地雷. Nobody else had any （人命などを）奪う，主張する on him. When he died, oh, Valancy, I thought I must die too—I didn't see how anybody could 耐える such anguish and live. To see his dear little 注目する，もくろむs and know he would never open them again—to 行方不明になる his warm little 団体／死体 nestled against 地雷 at night and think of him sleeping alone and 冷淡な, his 少しの 直面する under the hard frozen earth. It was so awful for the first year—after that it was a little easier, one didn't keep thinking 'this day last year'—but I was so glad when I 設立する out I was dying."

"'Who could 耐える life if it were not for the hope of death?'" murmured Valancy softly—it was of course a quotation from some 調書をとる／予約する of John Foster's.

"I'm glad I've told you all about it," sighed Cissy. "I 手配中の，お尋ね者 you to know."

Cissy died a few nights after that. Roaring Abel was away. When Valancy saw the change that had come over Cissy's 直面する she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to telephone for the doctor. But Cissy wouldn't let her.

"Valancy, why should you? He can do nothing for me. I've known for several days that—this—was 近づく. Let me die in peace, dear—just 持つ／拘留するing your 手渡す. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Tell Father good-bye for me. He's always been as good to me as he knew how—and Barney. Somehow, I think that Barney—"

But a spasm of coughing interrupted and exhausted her. She fell asleep when it was over, still 持つ／拘留するing to Valancy's 手渡す. Valancy sat there in the silence. She was not 脅すd—or even sorry. At sunrise Cissy died. She opened her 注目する，もくろむs and looked past Valancy at something—something that made her smile suddenly and happily. And, smiling, she died.

Valancy crossed Cissy's 手渡すs on her breast and went to the open window. In the eastern sky, まっただ中に the 解雇する／砲火／射撃s of sunrise, an old moon was hanging—as slender and lovely as a new moon. Valancy had never seen an old, old moon before. She watched it pale and fade until it paled and faded out of sight in the living rose of day. A little pool in the barrens shone in the sunrise like a 広大な／多数の／重要な golden lily.

But the world suddenly seemed a colder place to Valancy. Again nobody needed her. She was not in the least sorry Cecilia was dead. She was only sorry for all her 苦しむing in life. But nobody could ever 傷つける her again. Valancy had always thought death dreadful. But Cissy had died so 静かに—so pleasantly. And at the very last—something—had made up to her for everything. She was lying there now, in her white sleep, looking like a child. Beautiful! All the lines of shame and 苦痛 gone.

Roaring Abel drove in, 正当化するing his 指名する. Valancy went 負かす／撃墜する and told him. The shock sobered him at once. He 低迷d 負かす／撃墜する on the seat of his buggy, his 広大な／多数の／重要な 長，率いる hanging.

"Cissy dead—Cissy dead," he said vacantly. "I didn't think it would 'a' come so soon. Dead. She used to run 負かす／撃墜する the 小道／航路 to 会合，会う me with a little white rose stuck in her hair. Cissy used to be a pretty little girl. And a good little girl."

"She has always been a good little girl," said Valancy.

CHAPTER XXIV

Valancy herself made Cissy ready for burial. No 手渡すs but hers should touch that pitiful, wasted little 団体／死体. The old house was spotless on the day of burial. Barney Snaith was not there. He had done all he could to help Valancy before it—he had shrouded the pale Cecilia in white roses from the garden—and then had gone 支援する to his island. But everybody else was there. All Deerwood and "up 支援する" （機の）カム. They forgave Cissy splendidly at last. Mr. Bradly gave a very beautiful funeral 演説（する）／住所. Valancy had 手配中の，お尋ね者 her old 解放する／自由な Methodist man, but Roaring Abel was obdurate. He was a Presbyterian and no one but a Presbyterian 大臣 should bury his daughter. Mr. Bradly was very tactful. He 避けるd all 疑わしい points and it was plain to be seen he hoped for the best. Six reputable 国民s of Deerwood bore Cecilia Gay to her 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な in decorous Deerwood 共同墓地. の中で them was Uncle Wellington.

The Stirlings all （機の）カム to the funeral, men and women. They had had a family conclave over it. Surely now that Cissy Gay was dead Valancy would come home. She 簡単に could not stay there with Roaring Abel. That 存在 the 事例／患者, the wisest course—法令d Uncle James—was to …に出席する the funeral—legitimise the whole thing, so to speak—show Deerwood that Valancy had really done a most creditable 行為 in going to nurse poor Cecilia Gay and that her family 支援するd her up in it. Death, the 奇蹟 労働者, suddenly made the thing やめる respectable. If Valancy would return to home and decency while public opinion was under its 影響（力） all might yet be 井戸／弁護士席. Society was suddenly forgetting all Cecilia's wicked doings and remembering what a pretty, modest little thing she had been—"and motherless, you know—motherless!" It was the psychological moment—said Uncle James.

So the Stirlings went to the funeral. Even Cousin Gladys' neuritis 許すd her to come. Cousin Stickles was there, her bonnet dripping all over her 直面する, crying as woefully as if Cissy had been her nearest and dearest. Funerals always brought Cousin Stickles' "own sad bereavement" 支援する.

And Uncle Wellington was a 棺／かげり-持参人払いの.

Valancy, pale, subdued-looking, her slanted 注目する，もくろむs smudged with purple, in her 消す-brown dress, moving 静かに about, finding seats for people, 協議するing in undertones with 大臣 and undertaker, marshalling the "会葬者s" into the parlour, was so decorous and proper and Stirlingish that her family took heart of grace. This was not—could not be—the girl who had sat all night in the 支持を得ようと努めるd with Barney Snaith—who had gone 涙／ほころびing bareheaded through Deerwood and Port Lawrence. This was the Valancy they knew. Really, surprisingly 有能な and efficient. Perhaps she had always been kept 負かす／撃墜する a bit too much—Amelia really was rather strict—hadn't had a chance to show what was in her. So thought the Stirlings. And Edward Beck, from the Port road, a widower with a large family who was beginning to take notice, took notice of Valancy and thought she might make a mighty 罰金 second wife. No beauty—but a fifty-year-old widower, Mr. Beck told himself very reasonably, couldn't 推定する／予想する everything. Altogether, it seemed that Valancy's matrimonial chances were never so 有望な as they were at Cecilia Gay's funeral.

What the Stirlings and Edward Beck would have thought had they known the 支援する of Valancy's mind must be left to the imagination. Valancy was hating the funeral—hating the people who （機の）カム to 星／主役にする with curiosity at Cecilia's marble-white 直面する—hating the smugness—hating the dragging, melancholy singing—hating Mr. Bradly's 用心深い platitudes. If she could have had her absurd way, there would have been no funeral at all. She would have covered Cissy over with flowers, shut her away from 調査するing 注目する，もくろむs, and buried her beside her nameless little baby in the grassy burying-ground under the pines of the "up 支援する" church, with a bit of kindly 祈り from the old 解放する／自由な Methodist 大臣. She remembered Cissy 説 once, "I wish I could be buried 深い in the heart of the 支持を得ようと努めるd where nobody would ever come to say, 'Cissy Gay is buried here.' and tell over my 哀れな story."

But this! However, it would soon be over. Valancy knew, if the Stirlings and Edward Beck didn't, 正確に／まさに what she ーするつもりであるd to do then. She had lain awake all the 先行する night thinking about it and finally deciding on it.

When the funeral 行列 had left the house, Mrs. Frederick sought out Valancy in the kitchen.

"My child," she said tremulously, "you'll come home now?"

"Home," said Valancy absently. She was getting on an apron and calculating how much tea she must put to 法外な for supper. There would be several guests from "up 支援する"—distant 親族s of the Gays' who had not remembered them for years. And she was so tired she wished she could borrow a pair of 脚s from the cat.

"Yes, home," said Mrs. Frederick, with a touch of asperity. "I suppose you won't dream of staying here now—alone with Roaring Abel."

"Oh, no, I'm not going to stay here," said Valancy. "Of course, I'll have to stay for a day or two, to put the house in order 一般に. But that will be all. Excuse me, Mother, won't you? I've a frightful lot to do—all those "up 支援する" people will be here to supper."

Mrs. Frederick 退却／保養地d in かなりの 救済, and the Stirlings went home with はしけ hearts.

"We will just 扱う／治療する her as if nothing had happened when she comes 支援する," 法令d Uncle Benjamin. "That will be the best 計画（する）. Just as if nothing had happened."

CHAPTER XXV

On the evening of the day after the funeral Roaring Abel went off for a spree. He had been sober for four whole days and could 耐える it no longer. Before he went, Valancy told him she would be going away the next day. Roaring Abel was sorry, and said so. A distant cousin from "up 支援する" was coming to keep house for him—やめる willing to do so now since there was no sick girl to wait on—but Abel was not under any delusions 関心ing her.

"She won't be like you, my girl. 井戸／弁護士席, I'm 強いるd to you. You helped me out of a bad 穴を開ける and I won't forget it. And I won't forget what you did for Cissy. I'm your friend, and if you ever want any of the Stirlings spanked and sot in a corner send for me. I'm going to wet my whistle. Lord, but I'm 乾燥した，日照りの! Don't reckon I'll be 支援する afore tomorrow night, so if you're going home tomorrow, good-bye now."

"I may go home tomorrow," said Valancy, "but I'm not going 支援する to Deerwood."

"Not going—"

"You'll find the 重要な on the woodshed nail," interrupted Valancy, politely and unmistabably. "The dog will be in the barn and the cat in the cellar. Don't forget to 料金d her till your cousin comes. The pantry is 十分な and I made bread and pies today. Good-bye, Mr. Gay. You have been very 肉親，親類d to me and I 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる it."

"We've had a d——d decent time of it together, and that's a fact," said Roaring Abel. "You're the best small sport in the world, and your little finger is 価値（がある） the whole Stirling 一族／派閥 tied together. Good-bye and good-luck."

Valancy went out to the garden. Her 脚s trembled a little, but さもなければ she felt and looked composed. She held something tightly in her 手渡す. The garden was lying in the 魔法 of the warm, odorous July twilight. A few 星／主役にするs were out and the コマドリs were calling through the velvety silences of the barrens. Valancy stood by the gate expectantly. Would he come? If he did not—

He was coming. Valancy heard Lady Jane Grey far 支援する in the 支持を得ようと努めるd. Her breath （機の）カム a little more quickly. Nearer—and nearer—she could see Lady Jane now—bumping 負かす／撃墜する the 小道／航路—nearer—nearer—he was there—he had sprung from the car and leaning over the gate, looking at her.

"Going home, 行方不明になる Stirling?"

"I don't know—yet," said Valancy slowly. Her mind was made up, with no 影をつくる／尾行する of turning, but the moment was very tremendous.

"I thought I'd run 負かす／撃墜する and ask if there was anything I could do for you," said Barney.

Valancy took it with a canter.

"Yes, there is something you can do for me," she said, 平等に and distinctly. "Will you marry me?"

For a moment Barney was silent. There was no particular 表現 on his 直面する. Then he gave an 半端物 laugh.

"Come, now! I knew luck was just waiting around the corner for me. All the 調印するs have been pointing that way today."

"Wait." Valancy 解除するd her 手渡す. "I'm in earnest—but I want to get my breath after that question. Of course, with my bringing up, I realise perfectly 井戸／弁護士席 that this is one of the things 'a lady should not do.'"

"But why—why?"

"For two 推論する／理由s." Valancy was still a little breathless, but she looked Barney straight in the 注目する，もくろむs while all the dead Stirlings 回転するd 速く in their 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大なs and the living ones did nothing because they did not know that Valancy was at that moment 提案するing lawful marriage to the 悪名高い Barney Snaith. "The first 推論する／理由 is, I—I—" Valancy tried to say "I love you" but could not. She had to take 避難 in a pretended flippancy. "I'm crazy about you. The second is—this."

She 手渡すd him Dr. Trent's letter.

Barney opened it with the 空気／公表する of a man thankful to find some 安全な, sane thing to do. As he read it his 直面する changed. He understood—more perhaps than Valancy 手配中の，お尋ね者 him to.

"Are you sure nothing can be done for you?"

Valancy did not misunderstand the question.

"Yes. You know Dr. Trent's 評判 in regard to heart 病気. I 港／避難所't long to live—perhaps only a few months—a few weeks. I want to live them. I can't go 支援する to Deerwood—you know what my life was like there. And"—she managed it this time—"I love you. I want to spend the 残り／休憩（する） of my life with you. That's all."

Barney 倍のd his 武器 on the gate and looked 厳粛に enough at a white, saucy 星／主役にする that was winking at him just over Roaring Abel's kitchen chimney.

"You don't know anything about me. I may be a—殺害者."

"No, I don't. You may be something dreadful. Everything they say of you may be true. But it doesn't 事柄 to me."

"You care that much for me, Valancy?" said Barney incredulously, looking away from the 星／主役にする and into her 注目する，もくろむs—her strange, mysterious 注目する，もくろむs.

"I care—that much," said Valancy in a low 発言する／表明する. She was trembling. He had called her by her 指名する for the first time. It was sweeter than another man's caress could have been just to hear him say her 指名する like that.

"If we are going to get married," said Barney, speaking suddenly in a casual, 事柄-of-fact 発言する／表明する, "some things must be understood."

"Everything must be understood," said Valancy.

"I have things I want to hide," said Barney coolly "You are not to ask me about them."

"I won't," said Valancy.

"You must never ask to see my mail."

"Never."

"And we are never to pretend anything to each other."

"We won't," said Valancy. "You won't even have to pretend you like me. If you marry me I know you're only doing it out of pity."

"And we'll never tell a 嘘（をつく） to each other about anything—a big 嘘（をつく） or petty 嘘（をつく）."

"特に a petty 嘘（をつく）," agreed Valancy.

"And you'll have to live 支援する on my island. I won't live anywhere else."

"That's partly why I want to marry you," said Valancy.

Barney peered at her.

"I believe you mean it. 井戸／弁護士席—let's get married, then."

"Thank you," said Valancy, with a sudden return of primness. She would have been much いっそう少なく embarrassed if he had 辞退するd her.

"I suppose I 港／避難所't any 権利 to make 条件s. But I'm going to make one. You are never to 言及する to my heart or my 義務／負債 to sudden death. You are never to 勧める me to be careful. You are to forget—絶対 forget—that I'm not perfectly healthy. I have written a letter to my mother—here it is—you are to keep it. I have explained everything in it. If I 減少（する） dead suddenly—as I likely will do—"

"It will exonerate me in the 注目する，もくろむs of your kindred from the 疑惑 of having 毒（薬）d you," said Barney with a grin.

"正確に／まさに." Valancy laughed gaily. "Dear me, I'm glad this is over. It has been—a bit of an ordeal. You see, I'm not in the habit of going about asking men to marry me. It is so nice of you not to 辞退する me—or 申し込む／申し出 to be a brother!"

"I'll go to the Port tomorrow and get a license. We can be married tomorrow evening. Dr. 立ち往生させるing, I suppose?"

"Heavens, no." Valancy shuddered. "Besides, he wouldn't do it. He'd shake his forefinger at me and I'd jilt you at the altar. No, I want my old Mr. Towers to marry me."

"Will you marry me as I stand?" 需要・要求するd Barney. A passing car, 十分な of tourists, honked loudly—it seemed derisively. Valancy looked at him. Blue homespun shirt, nondescript hat, muddy 全体にわたるs. Unshaved!

"Yes," she said.

Barney put his 手渡すs over the gate and took her little, 冷淡な ones gently in his.

"Valancy," he said, trying to speak lightly, "of course I'm not in love with you—never thought of such a thing as 存在 in love. But, do you know, I've always thought you were a bit of a dear."

CHAPTER XXVI

The next day passed for Valancy like a dream. She could not make herself or anything she did seem real. She saw nothing of Barney, though she 推定する／予想するd he must go 動揺させるing past on his way to the Port for a license.

Perhaps he had changed his mind.

But at dusk the lights of Lady Jane suddenly 急襲するd over the crest of the wooded hill beyond the 小道／航路. Valancy was waiting at the gate for her bridegroom. She wore her green dress and her green hat because she had nothing else to wear. She did not look or feel at all bride-like—she really looked like a wild elf 逸脱するd out of the greenwood. But that did not 事柄. Nothing at all 事柄d except that Barney was coming for her.

"Ready?" said Barney, stopping Lady Jane with some new, horrible noises.

"Yes." Valancy stepped in and sat 負かす／撃墜する. Barney was in his blue shirt and 全体にわたるs. But they were clean 全体にわたるs. He was smoking a villainous-looking 麻薬を吸う and he was bareheaded. But he had a pair of oddly smart boots on under his shabby 全体にわたるs. And he was shaved. They clattered into Deerwood and through Deerwood and 攻撃する，衝突する the long, wooded road to the Port.

"港／避難所't changed your mind?" said Barney.

"No. Have you?"

"No."

That was their whole conversation on the fifteen miles. Everything was more dream-like than ever. Valancy didn't know whether she felt happy. Or terrified. Or just plain fool.

Then the lights of Port Lawrence were about them. Valancy felt as if she were surrounded by the gleaming, hungry 注目する，もくろむs of hundreds of 広大な／多数の／重要な, stealthy panthers. Barney 簡潔に asked where Mr. Towers lived, and Valancy as 簡潔に told him. They stopped before the shabby little house in an unfashionable street. They went in to the small, shabby parlour. Barney produced his license. So he had got it. Also a （犯罪の）一味. This thing was real. She, Valancy Stirling, was 現実に on the point of 存在 married.

They were standing up together before Mr. Towers. Valancy heard Mr. Towers and Barney 説 things. She heard some other person 説 things. She herself was thinking of the way she had once planned to be married—away 支援する in her 早期に teens when such a thing had not seemed impossible. White silk and tulle 隠す and orange-blossoms; no bridesmaid. But one flower girl, in a frock of cream 影をつくる／尾行する lace over pale pink, with a 花冠 of flowers in her hair, carrying a basket of roses and lilies-of-the-valley. And the groom, a noble-looking creature, irreproachably 覆う？ in whatever the fashion of the day 法令d. Valancy 解除するd her 注目する，もくろむs and saw herself and Barney in the little slanting, distorting mirror over the mantelpiece. She in her 半端物, unbridal green hat and dress; Barney in shirt and 全体にわたるs. But it was Barney. That was all that 事柄d. No 隠す—no flowers—no guests—no 現在のs—no wedding-cake—but just Barney. For all the 残り／休憩（する） of her life there would be Barney.

"Mrs. Snaith, I hope you will be very happy," Mr. Towers was 説.

He had not seemed surprised at their 外見—not even at Barney's 全体にわたるs. He had seen plenty of queer weddings "up 支援する." He did not know Valancy was one of the Deerwood Stirlings—he did not even know there were Deerwood Stirlings. He did not know Barney Snaith was a 逃亡者／はかないもの from 司法（官）. Really, he was an incredibly ignorant old man. Therefore he married them and gave them his blessing very gently and solemnly and prayed for them that night after they had gone away. His 良心 did not trouble him at all.

"What a nice way to get married!" Barney was 説 as he put Lady Jane in gear. "No fuss and flub-名付ける／吹き替える. I never supposed it was half so 平易な."

"For heaven's sake," said Valancy suddenly, "let's forget we are married and talk as if we weren't. I can't stand another 運動 like the one we had coming in."

Barney howled and threw Lady Jane into high with an infernal noise.

"And I thought I was making it 平易な for you," he said. "You didn't seem to want to talk."

"I didn't. But I 手配中の，お尋ね者 you to talk. I don't want you to make love to me, but I want you to 行為／法令／行動する like an ordinary human 存在. Tell me about this island of yours. What sort of a place is it?"

"The jolliest place in the world. You're going to love it. The first time I saw it I loved it. Old Tom MacMurray owned it then. He built the little shack on it, lived there in winter and rented it to Toronto people in summer. I bought it from him—became by that one simple 処理／取引 a landed proprietor owning a house and an island. There is something so 満足させるing in owning a whole island. And isn't an uninhabited island a charming idea? I'd 手配中の，お尋ね者 to own one ever since I'd read Robinson Crusoe. It seemed too good to be true. And beauty! Most of the scenery belongs to the 政府, but they don't 税金 you for looking at it, and the moon belongs to everybody. You won't find my shack very tidy. I suppose you'll want to make it tidy."

"Yes," said Valancy honestly. "I have to be tidy. I don't really want to be. But untidiness 傷つけるs me. Yes, I'll have to tidy up your shack."

"I was 用意が出来ている for that," said Barney, with a hollow groan.

"But," continued Valancy relentingly, "I won't 主張する on your wiping your feet when you come in."

"No, you'll only sweep up after me with the 空気／公表する of a 殉教者," said Barney. "井戸／弁護士席, anyway, you can't tidy the lean-to. You can't even enter it. The door will be locked and I shall keep the 重要な."

"Bluebeard's 議会," said Valancy. "I shan't even think of it. I don't care how many wives you have hanging up in it. So long as they're really dead."

"Dead as door-nails. You can do as you like in the 残り／休憩（する） of the house. There's not much of it—just one big living-room and one small bedroom. 井戸／弁護士席 built, though. Old Tom loved his 職業. The beams of our house are cedar and the rafters モミ. Our living-room windows 直面する west and east. It's wonderful to have a room where you can see both sunrise and sunset. I have two cats there. Banjo and Good luck. Adorable animals. Banjo is a big, enchanting, grey devil-cat. （土地などの）細長い一片d, of course. I don't care a hang for any cat that hasn't （土地などの）細長い一片s. I never knew a cat who could 断言する as genteely and 効果的に as Banjo. His only fault is that he snores horribly when he is asleep. Luck is a dainty little cat. Always looking wistfully at you, as if he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to tell you something. Maybe he will pull it off いつか. Once in a thousand years, you know, one cat is 許すd to speak. My cats are philosophers—neither of them ever cries over spilt milk.

"Two old crows live in a pine-tree on the point and are reasonably neighbourly. Call 'em 阻止する and Tuck. And I have a demure little tame フクロウ. 指名する, Leander. I brought him up from a baby and he lives over on the 本土／大陸 and chuckles to himself o'nights. And bats—it's a 広大な／多数の／重要な place for bats at night. 脅すd of bats?"

"No; I like them."

"So do I. Nice, queer, uncanny, mysterious creatures. Coming from nowhere—going nowhere. 急襲する! Banjo likes 'em, too. Eats 'em. I have a canoe and a disappearing プロペラ boat. Went to the Port in it today to get my license. Quieter than Lady Jane."

"I thought you hadn't gone at all—that you had changed your mind," 認める Valancy.

Barney laughed—the laugh Valancy did not like—the little, bitter, 冷笑的な laugh.

"I never change my mind," he said すぐに. They went 支援する through Deerwood. Up the Muskoka road. Past Roaring Abel's. Over the rocky, daisied 小道／航路. The dark pine 支持を得ようと努めるd swallowed them up. Through the pine 支持を得ようと努めるd, where the 空気／公表する was 甘い with the incense of the unseen, 壊れやすい bells of the linnaeas that carpeted the banks of the 追跡する. Out to the shore of Mistawis. Lady Jane must be left here. They got out. Barney led the way 負かす／撃墜する a little path to the 辛勝する／優位 of the lake.

"There's our island," he said gloatingly.

Valancy looked—and looked—and looked again. There was a diaphanous, lilac もや on the lake, shrouding the island. Through it the two enormous pine-trees that clasped 手渡すs over Barney's shack ぼんやり現れるd out like dark turrets. Behind them was a sky still rose-hued in the afterlight, and a pale young moon.

Valancy shivered like a tree the 勝利，勝つd 動かすs suddenly. Something seemed to sweep over her soul.

"My Blue 城!" she said. "Oh, my Blue 城!"

They got into the canoe and paddled out to it. They left behind the realm of everyday and things known and landed on a realm of mystery and enchantment where anything might happen—anything might be true. Barney 解除するd Valancy out of the canoe and swung her to a lichen-covered 激しく揺する under a young pine-tree. His 武器 were about her and suddenly his lips were on hers. Valancy 設立する herself shivering with the rapture of her first kiss.

"Welcome home, dear," Barney was 説.

CHAPTER XXVII

Cousin Georgiana （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する the 小道／航路 主要な up to her little house. She lived half a mile out of Deerwood and she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go in to Amelia's and find out if Doss had come home yet. Cousin Georgiana was anxious to see Doss. She had something very important to tell her. Something, she was sure, Doss would be delighted to hear. Poor Doss! She had had rather a dull life of it. Cousin Georgiana owned to herself that she would not like to live under Amelia's thumb. But that would be all changed now. Cousin Georgiana felt tremendously important. For the time 存在, she やめる forgot to wonder which of them would go next.

And here was Doss herself, coming along the road from Roaring Abel's in such a queer green dress and hat. Talk about luck. Cousin Georgiana would have a chance to impart her wonderful secret 権利 away, with nobody else about to interrupt. It was, you might say, a Providence.

Valancy, who had been living for four days on her enchanted island, had decided that she might 同様に go in to Deerwood and tell her 親族s that she was married. さもなければ, finding that she had disappeared from Roaring Abel's, they might get out a 家宅捜査令状 for her. Barney had 申し込む／申し出d to 運動 her in, but she had preferred to go alone. She smiled very radiantly at Cousin Georgiana, who, she remembered, as of some one known a long time ago, had really been not a bad little creature. Valancy was so happy that she could have smiled at anybody—even Uncle James. She was not averse to Cousin Georgiana's company. Already, since the houses along the road were becoming 非常に／多数の, she was conscious that curious 注目する，もくろむs were looking at her from every window.

"I suppose you're going home, dear Doss?" said Cousin Georgiana as she shook 手渡すs—furtively 注目する，もくろむing Valancy's dress and wondering if she had any petticoat on at all.

"Sooner or later," said Valancy cryptically.

"Then I'll go along with you. I've been wanting to see you very 特に, Doss dear. I've something やめる wonderful to tell you."

"Yes?" said Valancy absently. What on earth was Cousin Georgiana looking so mysterious and important about? But did it 事柄? No. Nothing 事柄d but Barney and the Blue 城 up 支援する in Mistawis.

"Who do you suppose called to see me the other day?" asked Cousin Georgiana archly.

Valancy couldn't guess.

"Edward Beck." Cousin Georgiana lowered her 発言する／表明する almost to a whisper. "Edward Beck."

Why the italics? And was Cousin Georgiana blushing?

"Who on earth is Edward Beck?" asked Valancy indifferently.

Cousin Georgiana 星／主役にするd.

"Surely you remember Edward Beck," she said reproachfully. "He lives in that lovely house on the Port Lawrence road and he comes to our church—定期的に. You must remember him."

"Oh, I think I do now," said Valancy, with an 成果／努力 of memory. "He's that old man with a wen on his forehead and dozens of children, who always sits in the pew by the door, isn't he?"

"Not dozens of children, dear—oh, no, not dozens. Not even one dozen. Only nine. At least only nine that count. The 残り／休憩（する） are dead. He isn't old—he's only about forty-eight—the prime of life, Doss—and what does it 事柄 about a wen?"

"Nothing, of course," agreed Valancy やめる 心から. It certainly did not 事柄 to her whether Edward Beck had a wen or a dozen wens or no wen at all. But Valancy was getting ばく然と 怪しげな. There was certainly an 空気／公表する of 抑えるd 勝利 about Cousin Georgiana. Could it be possible that Cousin Georgiana was thinking of marrying again? Marrying Edward Beck? Absurd. Cousin Georgiana was sixty-five if she were a day and her little anxious 直面する was as closely covered with 罰金 wrinkles as if she had been a hundred. But still—

"My dear," said Cousin Georgiana, "Edward Beck wants to marry you."

Valancy 星／主役にするd at Cousin Georgiana for a moment. Then she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go off into a peal of laughter. But she only said:

"Me?"

"Yes, you. He fell in love with you at the funeral. And he （機の）カム to 協議する me about it. I was such a friend of his first wife, you know. He is very much in earnest, Dossie. And its a wonderful chance for you. He's very 井戸／弁護士席 off—and you know—you—you—"

"Am not so young as I once was," agreed Valancy. "'To her that hath shall be given.' Do you really think I would make a good stepmother, Cousin Georgiana?"

"I'm sure you would. You were always so fond of children."

"But nine is such a family to start with," 反対するd Valancy 厳粛に.

"The two oldest are grown up and the third almost. That leaves only six that really count. And most of them are boys. So much easier to bring up than girls. There's an excellent 調書をとる／予約する—'Health Care of the Growing Child'—Gladys has a copy, I think. It would be such a help to you. And there are 調書をとる／予約するs about morals. You'd manage nicely. Of course I told Mr. Beck that I thought you would—would—"

"Jump at him," 供給（する）d Valancy.

"Oh, no, no, dear. I wouldn't use such an indelicate 表現. I told him I thought you would consider his 提案 favourably. And you will, won't you, dearie?"

"There's only one 障害," said Valancy dreamily. "You see, I'm married already."

"Married!" Cousin Georgiana stopped 在庫／株-still and 星／主役にするd at Valancy. "Married!"

"Yes. I was married to Barney Snaith last Tuesday evening in Port Lawrence."

There was a convenient gate-地位，任命する hard by. Cousin Georgiana took 会社／堅い 持つ／拘留する of it.

"Doss, dear—I'm an old woman—are you trying to make fun of me?"

"Not at all. I'm only telling you the truth. For heaven's sake, Cousin Georgiana,"—Valancy was alarmed by 確かな symptoms—"don't go crying here on the public road!"

Cousin Georgiana choked 支援する the 涙／ほころびs and gave a little moan of despair instead.

"Oh, Doss, what have you done? What have you done?"

"I've just been telling you. I've got married," said Valancy, calmly and 根気よく.

"To that—that—aw—that—Barney Snaith. Why, they say he's had a dozen wives already."

"I'm the only one 一連の会議、交渉／完成する at 現在の," said Valancy.

"What will your poor mother say?" moaned Cousin Georgiana.

"Come along with me and hear, if you want to know," said Valancy. "I'm on my way to tell her now."

Cousin Georgiana let go the gate-地位，任命する 慎重に and 設立する that she could stand alone. She meekly trotted on beside Valancy—who suddenly seemed やめる a different person in her 注目する，もくろむs. Cousin Georgiania had a tremendous 尊敬（する）・点 for a married woman. But it was terrible to think of what the poor girl had done. So 無分別な. So 無謀な. Of course Valancy must be stark mad. But she seemed so happy in her madness that Cousin Georgiana had a momentary 有罪の判決 that it would be a pity if the 一族／派閥 tried to scold her 支援する to sanity. She had never seen that look in Valancy's 注目する，もくろむs before. But what would Amelia say? And Ben?

"To marry a man you know nothing about," thought Cousin Georgiana aloud.

"I know more about him than I know of Edward Beck," said Valancy.

"Edward Beck goes to church," said Cousin Georgiana. "Does 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業—does your husband?"

"He has 約束d that he will go with me on 罰金 Sundays," said Valancy.

When they turned in at the Stirling gate Valancy gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Look at my rosebush! Why, it's blooming!"

It was. Covered with blossoms. 広大な／多数の／重要な, crimson, velvety blossoms. Fragrant. Glowing. Wonderful.

"My cutting it to pieces must have done it good," said Valancy, laughing. She gathered a handful of the blossoms—they would look 井戸／弁護士席 on the supper-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する of the verandah at Mistawis—and went, still laughing, up the walk, conscious that Olive was standing on the steps, Olive, goddess-like in loveliness, looking 負かす／撃墜する with a slight frown on her forehead. Olive, beautiful, insolent. Her 十分な form voluptuous in its swathings of rose silk and lace. Her golden-brown hair curling richly under her big, white-frilled hat. Her colour 熟した and melting.

"Beautiful," thought Valancy coolly, "but"—as if she suddenly saw her cousin through new 注目する，もくろむs—"without the slightest touch of distinction."

So Valancy had come home, thank goodness, thought Olive. But Valancy was not looking like a repentant, returned prodigal. This was the 原因（となる） of Olive's frown. She was looking 勝利を得た—graceless! That outlandish dress—that queer hat—those 手渡すs 十分な of 血-red roses. Yet there was something about both dress and hat, as Olive 即時に felt, that was 完全に 欠如（する）ing in her own attire. This 深くするd the frown. She put out a condescending 手渡す.

"So you're 支援する, Doss? Very warm day, isn't it? Did you walk in?"

"Yes. Coming in?"

"Oh, no. I've just been in. I've come often to 慰安 poor Aunty. She's been so lonesome. I'm going to Mrs. Bartlett's tea. I have to help 注ぐ. She's giving it for her cousin from Toronto. Such a charming girl. You'd have loved 会合 her, Doss. I think Mrs. Bartlett did send you a card. Perhaps you'll 減少（する） in later on."

"No, I don't think so," said Valancy indifferently. "I'll have to be home to get Barney's supper. We're going for a moonlit canoe ride around Mistawa tonight."

"Barney? Supper?" gasped Olive. "What do you mean, Valancy Stirling?"

"Valancy Snaith, by the grace of God."

Valancy flaunted her wedding-（犯罪の）一味 in Olive's stricken 直面する. Then she nimbly stepped past her and into the house. Cousin Georgiana followed. She would not 行方不明になる a moment of the 広大な／多数の／重要な scene, even though Olive did look as if she were going to faint.

Olive did not faint. She went stupidly 負かす／撃墜する the street to Mrs. Bartlett's. What did Doss mean? She couldn't have—that （犯罪の）一味—oh, what fresh スキャンダル was that wretched girl bringing on her defenceless family now? She should have been—shut up—long ago.

Valancy opened the sitting-room door and stepped 突然に 権利 into grim assemblage of Stirlings. They had not come together of malice prepense. Aunt Wellington and Cousin Gladys and Aunt Mildred and Cousin Sarah had just called in on their way home from a 会合 of the missionary society. Uncle James had dropped in to give Amelia some （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） regarding a doubtful 投資. Uncle Benjamin had called, 明らかに, to tell them it was a hot day and ask them what was the difference between a bee and a donkey. Cousin Stickles had been tactless enough to know the answer—"one gets all the honey, the other all the whacks"—and Uncle Benjamin was in a bad humour. In all of their minds, unexpressed, was the idea of finding out if Valancy had yet come home, and, if not, what steps must be taken in the 事柄.

井戸／弁護士席, here was Valancy at last, a 均衡を保った, 確信して thing, not humble and deprecating as she should have been. And so oddly, improperly young-looking. She stood in the doorway and looked at them, Cousin Georgiana timorous, expectant, behind her. Valancy was so happy she didn't hate her people any more. She could even see a number of good 質s in them that she had never seen before. And she was sorry for them. Her pity made her やめる gentle.

"井戸／弁護士席, Mother," she said pleasantly.

"So you've come home at last!" said Mrs. Frederick, getting out a handkerchief. She dared not be 乱暴／暴力を加えるd, but she did not mean to be cheated of her 涙／ほころびs.

"井戸／弁護士席, not 正確に／まさに," said Valancy. She threw her 爆弾. "I thought I せねばならない 減少（する） in and tell you I was married. Last Tuesday night. To Barney Snaith."

Uncle Benjamin bounced up and sat 負かす／撃墜する again.

"God bless my soul," he said dully. The 残り／休憩（する） seemed turned to 石／投石する. Except Cousin Gladys, who turned faint. Aunt Mildred and Uncle Wellington had to help her out to the kitchen.

"She would have to keep up the Victorian traditions," said Valancy, with a grin. She sat 負かす／撃墜する, uninvited, on a 議長，司会を務める. Cousin Stickles had begun to sob.

"Is there one day in your life that you 港／避難所't cried?" asked Valancy curiously.

"Valancy," said Uncle James, 存在 the first to 回復する the 力／強力にする of utterance, "did you mean what you said just now?"

"I did."

"Do you mean to say that you have 現実に gone and married—married—that 悪名高い Barney Snaith—that—that—犯罪の—that—"

"I have."

"Then," said Uncle James violently, "you are a shameless creature, lost to all sense of propriety and virtue, and I wash my 手渡すs 完全に of you. I do not want ever to see your 直面する again."

"What have you left to say when I commit 殺人?" asked Valancy.

Uncle Benjamin again 控訴，上告d to God to bless his soul.

"That drunken 無法者—that—"

A dangerous 誘発する appeared in Valancy's 注目する，もくろむs. They might say what they liked to and of her but they should not 乱用 Barney.

"Say 'damn' and you'll feel better," she 示唆するd.

"I can 表明する my feelings without blasphemy. And I tell you you have covered yourself with eternal 不名誉 and infamy by marrying that drunkard—"

"You would be more endurable if you got drunk occasionally. Barney is not a drunkard."

"He was seen drunk in Port Lawrence—pickled to the gills," said Uncle Benjamin.

"If that is true—and I don't believe it—he had a good 推論する／理由 for it. Now I 示唆する that you all stop looking 悲劇の and 受託する the 状況／情勢. I'm married—you can't undo that. And I'm perfectly happy."

"I suppose we せねばならない be thankful he has really married her," said Cousin Sarah, by way of trying to look on the 有望な 味方する.

"If he really has," said Uncle James, who had just washed his 手渡すs of Valancy. "Who married you?"

"Mr. Towers, of Port Lawrence."

"By a 解放する／自由な Methodist!" groaned Mrs. Frederick—as if to have been married by an 拘留するd Methodist would have been a shade いっそう少なく disgraceful. It was the first thing she had said. Mrs. Frederick didn't know what to say. The whole thing was too horrible—too horrible—too nightmarish. She was sure she must wake up soon. After all their 有望な hopes at the funeral!

"It makes me think of those what-d'ye-call-'ems," said Uncle Benjamin helplessly. "Those yarns—you know—of fairies taking babies out of their cradles."

"Valancy could hardly be a changeling at twenty-nine," said Aunt Wellington satirically.

"She was the oddest-looking baby I ever saw, anyway," 回避するd Uncle Benjamin. "I said so at the time—you remember, Amelia? I said I had never seen such 注目する，もくろむs in a human 長，率いる."

"I'm glad I never had any children," said Cousin Sarah. "If they don't break your heart in one way they do it in another."

"Isn't it better to have your heart broken than to have it wither up?" queried Valancy. "Before it could be broken it must have felt something splendid. That would be 価値（がある） the 苦痛."

"Dipp—clean dippy," muttered Uncle Benjamin, with a vague, unsatisfactory feeling that somebody had said something like that before.

"Valancy," said Mrs. Frederick solemnly, "do you ever pray to be forgiven for disobeying your mother?"

"I should pray to be forgiven for obeying you so long," said Valancy stubbornly. "But I don't pray about that at all. I just thank God every day for my happiness."

"I would rather," said Mrs. Frederick, beginning to cry rather belatedly, "see you dead before me than listen to what you have told me today."

Valancy looked at her mother and aunts, and wondered if they could ever have known anything of the real meaning of love. She felt sorrier for them than ever. They were so very pitiable. And they never 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd it.

"Barney Snaith is a scoundrel to have deluded you into marrying him," said Uncle James violently.

"Oh, I did the deluding. I asked him to marry me," said Valancy, with a wicked smile.

"Have you no pride?" 需要・要求するd Aunt Wellington.

"Lots of it. I am proud that I have 達成するd a husband by my own unaided 成果／努力s. Cousin Georgiana here 手配中の，お尋ね者 to help me to Edward Beck."

"Edward Beck is 価値（がある） twenty thousand dollars and has the finest house between here and Port Lawrence," said Uncle Benjamin.

"That sounds very 罰金," said Valancy scornfully, "but it isn't 価値（がある） that"—she snapped her fingers—"compared to feeling Barney's 武器 around me and his cheek against 地雷."

"Oh, Doss!" said Cousin Stickles. Cousin Sarah said, "Oh, Doss!" Aunt Wellington said, "Valancy, you need not be indecent."

"Why, it surely isn't indecent to like to have your husband put his arm around you? I should think it would be indecent if you didn't."

"Why 推定する／予想する decency from her?" 問い合わせd Uncle James sarcastically. "She has 削減（する） herself off from decency forevermore. She has made her bed. Let her 嘘（をつく） on it."

"Thanks," said Valancy very gratefully. "How you would have enjoyed 存在 Torquemada! Now, I must really be getting 支援する. Mother, may I have those three woollen cushions I worked last winter?"

"Take them—take everything!" said Mrs. Frederick.

"Oh, I don't want everything—or much. I don't want my Blue 城 cluttered. Just the cushions. I'll call for them some day when we モーター in."

Valancy rose and went to the door. There she turned. She was sorrier than ever for them all. They had no Blue 城 in the purple 孤独s of Mistawis.

"The trouble with you people is that you don't laugh enough," she said.

"Doss dear," said Cousin Georgiana mournfully, "some day you will discover that 血 is 厚い than water."

"Of course it is. But who wants water to be 厚い?" parried Valancy. "We want water to be thin—sparkling—水晶-（疑いを）晴らす."

Cousin Stickles groaned.

Valancy would not ask any of them to come and see her—she was afraid they would come out of curiosity. But she said:

"Do you mind if I 減少（する） in and see you once in a while, Mother?"

"My house will always be open to you," said Mrs. Frederick, with a mournful dignity.

"You should never recognise her again," said Uncle James 厳しく, as the door の近くにd behind Valancy.

"I cannot やめる forget that I am a mother," said Mrs. Frederick. "My poor, unfortunate girl!"

"I dare say the marriage isn't 合法的な," said Uncle James comfortingly. "He has probably been married half a dozen times before. But I am through with her. I have done all I could, Amelia. I think you will 収容する／認める that. Henceforth"—Uncle James was terribly solemn about it—"Valancy is to me as one dead."

"Mrs. Barney Snaith," said Cousin Georgiana, as if trying it out to see how it would sound.

"He has a 得点する／非難する／２０ of 偽名，通称s, no 疑問," said Uncle Benjamin. "For my part, I believe the man is half Indian. I 港／避難所't a 疑問 they're living in a wigwam."

"If he has married her under the 指名する of Snaith and it isn't his real 指名する wouldn't that make the marriage 無効の?" asked Cousin Stickles hopefully.

Uncle James shook his 長，率いる.

"No, it is the man who marries, not the 指名する."

"You know," said Cousin Gladys, who had 回復するd and returned but was still 不安定な, "I had a 際立った premonition of this at Herbert's silver dinner. I 発言／述べるd it at the time. When she was defending Snaith. You remember, of course. It （機の）カム over me like a 発覚. I spoke to David when I went home about it."

"What—what," 需要・要求するd Aunt Wellington of the universe, "has come over Valancy? Valancy!"

The universe did not answer but Uncle James did.

"Isn't there something coming up of late about 第２位 personalities cropping out? I don't 持つ／拘留する with many of those new-fangled notions, but there may be something in this one. It would account for her 理解できない 行為／行う."

"Valancy is so fond of mushrooms," sighed Cousin Georgiana. "I'm afraid she'll get 毒（薬）d eating toadstools by mistake living up 支援する in the 支持を得ようと努めるd."

"There are worse things than death," said Uncle James, believing that it was the first time in the world that such 声明 had been made.

"Nothing can ever be the same again!" sobbed Cousin Stickles.

Valancy, hurrying along the dusty road, 支援する to 冷静な／正味の Mistawis and her purple island, had forgotten all about them—just as she had forgotten that she might 減少（する） dead at any moment if she hurried.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Summer passed by. The Stirling 一族／派閥—with the insignificant exception of Cousin Georgiana—had tacitly agreed to follow Uncle James' example and look upon Valancy as one dead. To be sure, Valancy had an unquiet, ghostly habit of recurring resurrections when she and Barney clattered through Deerwood and out to the Port in that unspeakable car. Valancy bareheaded, with 星／主役にするs in her 注目する，もくろむs. Barney, bareheaded, smoking his 麻薬を吸う. But shaved. Always shaved now, if any of them had noticed it. They even had the audacity to go in to Uncle Benjamin's 蓄える／店 to buy groceries. Twice Uncle Benjamin ignored them. Was not Valancy one of the dead? While Snaith had never 存在するd. But the third time he told Barney he was a scroundrel who should be hung for 誘惑するing an unfortunate, weak-minded girl away from her home and friends.

Barney's one straight eyebrow went up.

"I have made her happy," he said coolly, "and she was 哀れな with her friends. So that's that."

Uncle Benjamin 星／主役にするd. It had never occurred to him that women had to be, or せねばならない be, "made happy."

"You—you pup!" he said.

"Why be so unoriginal?" queried Barney amiably. "Anybody could call me a pup. Why not think of something worthy of the Stirlings? Besides, I'm not a pup. I'm really やめる a middle-老年の dog. Thirty-five, if you're 利益／興味d in knowing."

Uncle Benjamin remembered just in time that Valancy was dead. He turned his 支援する on Barney.

Valancy was happy—gloriously and 完全に so. She seemed to be living in a wonderful house of life and every day opened a new, mysterious room. It was in a world which had nothing in ありふれた with the one she had left behind—a world where time was not—which was young with immortal 青年—where there was neither past nor 未来 but only the 現在の. She 降伏するd herself utterly to the charm of it.

The 絶対の freedom of it all was unbelievable. They could do 正確に／まさに as they liked. No Mrs. Grundy. No traditions. No 親族s. Or in-法律s. "Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away," as Barney 引用するd shamelessly.

Valancy had gone home once and got her cushions. And Cousin Georgiana had given her one of her famous candlewick spreads of most (a)手の込んだ／(v)詳述する design. "For your spare-room bed, dear," she said.

"But I 港／避難所't got any spare-room," said Valancy.

Cousin Georgiana looked horrified. A house without a spare-room was monstrous to her.

"But it's a lovely spread," said Valanacy, with a kiss, "and I'm so glad to have it. I'll put it on my own bed. Barney's old patch-work quilt is getting ragged."

"I don't see how you can be contented to live up 支援する," sighed Cousin Georgiana. "It's so out of the world."

"Contented!" Valancy laughed. What was the use of trying to explain to Cousin Georgiana. "It is," she agreed, "most gloriously and 完全に out of the world."

"And you are really happy, dear?" asked Cousin Georgiana wistfully.

"I really am," said Valancy 厳粛に, her 注目する，もくろむs dancing.

"Marriage is such a serious thing," sighed Cousin Georgiana.

"When it's going to last long," agreed Valancy.

Cousin Georgiana did not understand this at all. But it worried her and she lay awake at nights wondering what Valancy meant by it.

Valancy loved her Blue 城 and was 完全に 満足させるd with it. The big living-room had three windows, all 命令（する）ing exquisite 見解（をとる）s of exquisite Mistawis. The one in the end of the room was an oriel window—which Tom MacMurray, Barney explained, had got out of some little, old "up 支援する" church that had been sold. It 直面するd the west and when the sunsets flooded it Valancy's whole 存在 knelt in 祈り as if in some 広大な／多数の／重要な cathedral. The new moons always looked 負かす／撃墜する through it, the lower pine boughs swayed about the 最高の，を越す of it, and all through the nights the soft, 薄暗い silver of the lake dreamed through it.

There was a 石／投石する fireplace on the other 味方する. No desecrating gas imitation but a real fireplace where you could 燃やす real スピードを出す／記録につけるs. With a big grizzly bearskin on the 床に打ち倒す before it, and beside it a hideous, red-plush sofa of Tom MacMurray's régime. But its ugliness was hidden by silver-grey 木材／素質 wolf 肌s, and Valancy's cushions made it gay and comfortable. In a corner a nice, tall, lazy old clock ticked—the 権利 肉親，親類d of a clock. One that did not hurry the hours away but ticked them off deliberately. It was the jolliest looking old clock. A fat, corpulent clock with a 広大な／多数の／重要な, 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, man's 直面する painted on it, the 手渡すs stretching out of its nose and the hours encircling it like a halo.

There was a big glass 事例／患者 of stuffed フクロウs and several deer 長，率いるs—likewise of Tom MacMurray's vintage. Some comfortable old 議長，司会を務めるs that asked to be sat upon. A squat little 議長，司会を務める with a cushion was prescriptively Banjo's. If anybody else dared sit on it Banjo glared him out of it with his topaz-hued, 黒人／ボイコット-（犯罪の）一味d 注目する，もくろむs. Banjo had an adorable habit of hanging over the 支援する of it, trying to catch his own tail. Losing his temper because he couldn't catch it. Giving it a 猛烈な／残忍な bite for spite when he did catch it. Yowling malignantly with 苦痛. Barney and Valancy laughed at him until they ached. But it was Good Luck they loved. They were both agreed that Good Luck was so lovable that he 事実上 量d to an obsession.

One 味方する of the 塀で囲む was lined with rough, homemade 調書をとる／予約する-棚上げにするs filled with 調書をとる／予約するs, and between the two 味方する windows hung an old mirror in a faded gilt-でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる, with fat cupids gamboling in the パネル盤 over the glass. A mirror, Valancy thought, that must be like the fabled mirror into which Venus had once looked and which thereafter 反映するd as beautiful every woman who looked into it. Valancy thought she was almost pretty in that mirror. But that may have been because she had shingled her hair.

This was before the day of （頭が）ひょいと動くs and was regarded as a wild, unheard-of 訴訟／進行—unless you had typhoid. When Mrs. Frederick heard of it she almost decided to erase Valancy's 指名する from the family Bible. Barney 削減（する） the hair, square off at the 支援する of Valancy's neck, bringing it 負かす／撃墜する in a short 黒人／ボイコット fringe over her forehead. It gave a meaning and a 目的 to her little, three-cornered 直面する that it never had 所有するd before. Even her nose 中止するd to irritate her. Her 注目する，もくろむs were 有望な, and her sallow 肌 had （疑いを）晴らすd to the hue of creamy ivory. The old family joke had come true—she was really fat at last—anyway, no longer skinny. Valancy might never be beautiful, but she was of the type that looks its best in the 支持を得ようと努めるd—elfin—mocking—alluring. Her heart bothered her very little. When an attack 脅すd she was 一般に able to 長，率いる it off with Dr. Trent's prescription. The only bad one she had was one night when she was 一時的に out of 薬／医学. And it was a bad one. For the time 存在, Valancy realised 熱心に that death was 現実に waiting to pounce on her any moment. But the 残り／休憩（する） of the time she would not—did not—let herself remember it at all.

CHAPTER XXIX

Valancy toiled not, neither did she spin. There was really very little work to do. She cooked their meals on a coal-oil stove, 成し遂げるing all her little 国内の 儀式s carefully and exultingly, and they ate out on the verandah that almost overhung the lake. Before them lay Mistawis, like a scene out of some fairy tale of old time. And Barney smiling his 新たな展開d, enigmatical smile at her across the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

"What a 見解（をとる） old Tom 選ぶd out when he built this shack!" Barney would say exultantly.

Supper was the meal Valancy liked best. The faint laughter of 勝利，勝つd was always about them and the colours of Mistawis, 皇室の and spiritual, under the changing clouds were something that cannot be 表明するd in mere words. 影をつくる／尾行するs, too. Clustering in the pines until a 勝利，勝つd shook them out and 追求するd them over Mistawis. They lay all day along the shores, threaded by ferns and wild blossoms. They stole around the headlands in the glow of the sunset, until twilight wove them all into one 広大な／多数の／重要な web of dusk.

The cats, with their wise, innocent little 直面するs, would sit on the verandah railing and eat the tidbits Barney flung them. And how good everything tasted! Valancy, まっただ中に all the romance of Mistawis, never forgot that men had stomachs. Barney paid her no end of compliments on her cooking.

"After all," he 認める, "there's something to be said for square meals. I've mostly got along by boiling two or three dozen eggs hard at once and eating a few when I got hungry, with a slice of bacon once in a while and a jorum or tea."

Valancy 注ぐd tea out of Barney's little 乱打するd old pewter teapot of incredible age. She had not even a 始める，決める of dishes—only Barney's mismatched chipped bits—and a dear, big, pobby old jug of コマドリ's-egg blue.

After the meal was over they would sit there and talk for hours—or sit and say nothing, in all the languages of the world, Barney pulling away at his 麻薬を吸う, Valancy dreaming idly and deliciously, gazing at the far-off hills beyond Mistawis where the spires of モミs （機の）カム out against the sunset. The moonlight would begin to silver the Mistawis. Bats would begin to 急襲する darkly against the pale, western gold. The little waterfall that （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する on the high bank not far away would, by some whim of the wildwood gods, begin to look like a wonderful white woman beckoning through the spicy, fragrant evergreens. And Leander would begin to chuckle diabolically on the 本土／大陸 shore. How 甘い it was to sit there and do nothing in the beautiful silence, with Barney at the other 味方する of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, smoking!

There were plenty of other islands in sight, though 非，不，無 were 近づく enough to be troublesome as 隣人s. There was one little group of islets far off to the west which they called the Fortunate 小島s. At sunrise they looked like a cluster of emeralds, at sunset like a cluster of amethysts. They were too small for houses; but the lights on the larger islands would bloom out all over the lake, and bonfires would be lighted on their shores, streaming up into the 支持を得ようと努めるd 影をつくる／尾行するs and throwing 広大な／多数の／重要な, 血-red 略章s over the waters. Music would drift to them alluringly from boats here and there, or from the verandahs on the big house of the millionaire on the biggest island.

"Would you like a house like that, Moonlight?" Barney asked once, waving his 手渡す at it. He had taken to calling her Moonlight, and Valancy loved it.

"No," said Valancy, who had once dreamed of a mountain 城 ten times the size of the rich man's "cottage" and now pitied the poor inhabitants of palaces. "No. It's too elegant. I would have to carry it with me everywhere I went. On my 支援する like a snail. It would own me—所有する me, 団体／死体 and soul. I like a house I can love and cuddle and boss. Just like ours here. I don't envy Hamilton Gossard 'the finest summer 住居 in Canada.' It is magnificent, but it isn't my Blue 城."

Away 負かす／撃墜する at the far end of the lake they got every night a glimpse of a big, 大陸の train 急ぐing through a （疑いを）晴らすing. Valancy liked to watch its lighted windows flash by and wonder who was on it and what hopes and 恐れるs it carried. She also amused herself by picturing Barney and herself going to the dances and dinners in the houses on the islands, but she did not want to go in reality. Once they did go to a masquerade dance in the pavilion at one of the hotels up the lake, and had a glorious evening, but slipped away in their canoe, before unmasking time, 支援する to the Blue 城.

"It was lovely—but I don't want to go again," said Valancy.

So many hours a day Barney shut himself up in Bluebeard's 議会. Valancy never saw the inside of it. From the smells that filtered through at times she 結論するd he must be 行為／行うing 化学製品 実験s—or 偽造のing money. Valancy supposed there must be smelly 過程s in making 偽造の money. But she did not trouble herself about it. She had no 願望（する） to peer into the locked 議会s of Barney's house of life. His past and his 未来 関心d her not. Only this rapturous 現在の. Nothing else 事柄d.

Once he went away and stayed away two days and nights. He had asked Valancy if she would be afraid to stay alone and she had said she would not. He never told her where he had been. She was not afraid to be alone, but she was horribly lonely. The sweetest sound she had ever heard was Lady Jane's clatter through the 支持を得ようと努めるd when Barney returned. And then his signal whistle from the shore. She ran 負かす／撃墜する to the 上陸 激しく揺する to 迎える／歓迎する him—to nestle herself into his eager 武器—they did seem eager.

"Have you 行方不明になるd me, Moonlight?" Barney was whispering.

"It seems a hundred years since you went away," said Valancy.

"I won't leave you again."

"You must," 抗議するd Valancy, "if you want to. I'd be 哀れな if I thought you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go and didn't, because of me. I want you to feel perfectly 解放する／自由な."

Barney laughed—a little cynically.

"There is no such thing as freedom on earth," he said. "Only different 肉親，親類d of bondages. And comparative bondages. You think you are 解放する／自由な now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbearable 肉親，親類d of bondage. But are you? You love me—that's a bondage."

"Who said or wrote that 'the 刑務所，拘置所 unto which we doom ourselves no 刑務所，拘置所 is'?" asked Valancy dreamily, 粘着するing to his arm as they climbed up the 激しく揺する steps.

"Ah, now you have it," said Barney. "That's all the freedom we can hope for—the freedom to choose our 刑務所，拘置所. But, Moonlight,"—he stopped at the door of the Blue 城 and looked about him—at the glorious lake, the 広大な／多数の／重要な, shadowy 支持を得ようと努めるd, the bonfires, the twinkling lights—"Moonlight, I'm glad to be home again. When I （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する through the 支持を得ようと努めるd and saw my home lights—地雷—gleaming out under the old pines—something I'd never seen before—oh, girl, I was glad—glad!"

But in spite of Barney's doctrine of bondage, Valancy thought they were splendidly 解放する／自由な. It was amazing to be able to sit up half the night and look at the moon if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. To be late for meals if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to—she who had always been rebuked so はっきりと by her mother and so reproachfully by Cousin Stickles if she were one minute late. Dawdle over meals as long as you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. Leave your crusts if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. Not come home at all for meals if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. Sit on a sun-warm 激しく揺する and paddle your 明らかにする feet in the hot sand if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. Just sit and do nothing in the beautiful silence if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. In short, do any fool thing you 手配中の，お尋ね者 to whenever the notion took you. If that wasn't freedom, what was?

CHAPTER XXX

They didn't spend all their days on the island. They spent more than half of them wandering at will through the enchanted Muskoka country. Barney knew the 支持を得ようと努めるd as a 調書をとる／予約する and he taught their lore and （手先の）技術 to Valancy. He could always find 追跡する and haunt of the shy 支持を得ようと努めるd people. Valancy learned the different fairy-likenesses of the mosses—the charm and exquisiteness of woodland blossoms. She learned to know every bird at sight and mimic its call—though never so perfectly as Barney. She made friends with every 肉親，親類d of tree. She learned to paddle a canoe 同様に as Barney himself. She liked to be out in the rain and she never caught 冷淡な.

いつかs they took a lunch with them and went berrying—strawberries and blueberries. How pretty blueberries were—the dainty green of the unripe berries, the glossy pinks and scarlets of the half 熟したs, the misty blue of the fully 円熟したd! And Valancy learned the real flavour of the strawberry in its highest perfection. There was a 確かな sunlit dell on the banks of Mistawis along which white birches grew on one 味方する and on the other still, changeless 階級s of young spruces. There were long grasses at the roots of the birches, 徹底的に捜すd 負かす／撃墜する by the 勝利，勝つd and wet with morning dew late into the afternoons. Here they 設立する berries that might have graced the 祝宴s of Lucullus, 広大な／多数の／重要な ambrosial sweetnesses hanging like rubies to long, rosy stalks. They 解除するd them by the stalk and ate them from it, uncrushed and virgin, tasting each berry by itself with all its wild fragrance ensphered therein. When Valancy carried any of these berries home that elusive essence escaped and they became nothing more than the ありふれた berries of the market-place—very kitchenly good indeed, but not as they would have been, eaten in their birch dell until her fingers were stained as pink as Aurora's eyelids.

Or they went after water-lilies. Barney knew where to find them in the creeks and bays of Mistawis. Then the Blue 城 was glorious with them, every receptacle that Valancy could contrive filled with the exquisite things. If not water lilies then 枢機けい／主要な flowers, fresh and vivid from the 押し寄せる／沼地s of Mistawis, where they 燃やすd like 略章s of 炎上.

いつかs they went trouting on little nameless rivers or hidden brooks on whose banks Naiads might have sunned their white, wet 四肢s. Then all they took with them were some raw potatoes and salt. They roasted the potatoes over a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 and Barney showed Valancy how to cook the trout by wrapping them in leaves, 塗装 them with mud and baking them in a bed of hot coals. Never were such delicious meals. Valancy had such an appetite it was no wonder she put flesh on her bones.

Or they just prowled and 調査するd through 支持を得ようと努めるd that always seemed to be 推定する／予想するing something wonderful to happen. At least, that was the way Valancy felt about them. 負かす／撃墜する the next hollow—over the next hill—you would find it.

"We don't know where we're going, but isn't it fun to go?" Barney used to say.

Once or twice night overtook them, too far from their Blue 城 to get 支援する. But Barney made a fragrant bed of bracken and モミ boughs and they slept on it dreamlessly, under a 天井 of old spruces with moss hanging from them, while beyond them moonlight and the murmur of pines blended together so that one could hardly tell which was light and which was sound.

There were 雨の days, of course, when Muskoka was a wet green land. Days when にわか雨s drifted across Mistawis like pale ghosts of rain and they never thought of staying in because of it. Days when it rained in 権利 good earnest and they had to stay in. Then Barney shut himself up in Bluebeard's 議会 and Valancy read, or dreamed on the wolfskins with Good Luck purring beside her and Banjo watching them suspiciously from his own peculiar 議長，司会を務める. On Sunday evenings they paddled across to a point of land and walked from there through the 支持を得ようと努めるd to the little 解放する／自由な Methodist church. One felt really too happy for Sunday. Valancy had never really liked Sundays before.

And always, Sundays and weekdays, she was with Barney. Nothing else really 事柄d. And what a companion he was! How understanding! How jolly! How—how Barney-like! That summed it all up.

Valancy had taken some of her two hundred dollars out of the bank and spent it in pretty 着せる／賦与するs. She had a little smoke-blue chiffon which she always put on when they spent the evenings at home—smoke-blue with touches of silver about it. It was after she began wearing it that Barney began calling her Moonlight.

"Moonlight and blue twilight—that is what you look like in that dress. I like it. It belongs to you. You aren't 正確に／まさに pretty, but you have some adorable beauty-位置／汚点／見つけ出すs. Your 注目する，もくろむs. And that little kissable dent just between your collar bones. You have the wrist and ankle of an aristocrat. That little 長，率いる of yours is beautifully 形態／調整d. And when you look backward over your shoulder you're maddening—特に in twilight or moonlight. An elf maiden. A 支持を得ようと努めるd sprite. You belong to the 支持を得ようと努めるd, Moonlight—you should never be out of them. In spite of your 家系, there is something wild and remote and untamed about you. And you have such a nice, 甘い, throaty, summery 発言する／表明する. Such a nice 発言する／表明する for love-making."

"Shure an' ye've kissed the Blarney 石／投石する," scoffed Valancy. But she tasted these compliments for weeks.

She got a pale green bathing-控訴, too—a 衣料品 which would have given her 一族／派閥 their deaths if they had ever seen her in it. Barney taught her how to swim. いつかs she put her bathing-dress on when she got up and didn't take it off until she went to bed—running 負かす／撃墜する to the water for a 急落（する），激減（する） whenever she felt like it and sprawling on the sun-warm 激しく揺するs to 乾燥した，日照りの.

She had forgotten all the old humiliating things that used to come up against her in the night—the 不正s and the 失望s. It was as if they had all happened to some other person—not to her, Valancy Snaith, who had always been happy.

"I understand now what it means to be born again," she told Barney.

Holmes speaks of grief "staining backward" through the pages of life; but Valancy 設立する her happiness had stained backward likewise and flooded with rose-colour her whole previous 淡褐色 存在. She 設立する it hard to believe that she had ever been lonely and unhappy and afraid.

"When death comes, I shall have lived," thought Valancy. "I shall have had my hour."

And her dust-pile!

One day Valancy had heaped up the sand in the little island cove in a tremendous 反対／詐欺 and stuck a gay little Union Jack on 最高の，を越す of it.

"What are you celebrating?" Barney 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know.

"I'm just exorcising an old demon," Valancy told him.

CHAPTER XXXI

Autumn （機の）カム. Late September with 冷静な／正味の nights. They had to forsake the verandah; but they kindled a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 in the big fireplace and sat before it with jest and laughter. They left the doors open, and Banjo and Good Luck （機の）カム and went at 楽しみ. いつかs they sat 厳粛に on the bearskin rug between Barney and Valancy; いつかs they slunk off into the mystery of the 冷気／寒がらせる night outside. The 星／主役にするs smouldered in the horizon もやs through the old oriel. The haunting, 執拗な croon of the pine-trees filled the 空気／公表する. The little waves began to make soft, sobbing splashes on the 激しく揺するs below them in the rising 勝利，勝つd. They needed no light but the firelight that いつかs leaped up and 明らかにする／漏らすd them—いつかs shrouded them in 影をつくる／尾行する. When the night 勝利，勝つd rose higher Barney would shut the door and light a lamp and read to her—poetry and essays and gorgeous, 薄暗い chronicles of 古代の wars. Barney never would read novels: he 公約するd they bored him. But いつかs she read them herself, curled up on the wolf 肌s, laughing aloud in peace. For Barney was not one of those 悪化させるing people who can never hear you smiling audibly over something you've read without 問い合わせing placidly, "What is the joke?"

October—with a gorgeous 野外劇／豪華な行列 of colour around Mistawis, into which Valancy 急落（する），激減（する）d her soul. Never had she imagined anything so splendid. A 広大な／多数の／重要な, 色合いd peace. Blue, 勝利，勝つd-winnowed skies. Sunlight sleeping in the glades of that fairyland. Long dreamy purple days paddling idly in their canoe along shores and up the rivers of crimson and gold. A sleepy, red hunter's moon. Enchanted tempests that stripped the leaves from the trees and heaped them along the shores. 飛行機で行くing 影をつくる／尾行するs of clouds. What had all the smug, opulent lands out 前線 to compare with this?

November—with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets 炎上ing in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the 厳格な，質素な 支持を得ようと努めるd were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of 倍のd 手渡すs and の近くにd 注目する，もくろむs—days 十分な of a 罰金, pale 日光 that 精査するd through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and 微光d の中で the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of 広大な／多数の／重要な autumn 嵐／襲撃するs, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans の中で the 本土／大陸 trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof 井戸／弁護士席, and his chimney drew.

"Warm 解雇する／砲火／射撃—調書をとる／予約するs—慰安—safety from 嵐／襲撃する—our cats on the rug. Moonlight," said Barney, "would you be any happier now if you had a million dollars?"

"No—nor half so happy. I'd be bored by 条約s and 義務s then."

December. 早期に snows and Orion. The pale 解雇する／砲火／射撃s of the 乳の Way. It was really winter now—wonderful, 冷淡な, starry winter. How Valancy had always hated winter! Dull, 簡潔な／要約する, uneventful days. Long, 冷淡な, companionless nights. Cousin Stickles with her 支援する that had to be rubbed continually. Cousin Stickles making weird noises gargling her throat in the mornings. Cousin Stickles whining over the price of coal. Her mother, 調査（する）ing, 尋問, ignoring. Endless 冷淡なs and bronchitis—or the dread of it. Redfern's Liniment and Purple Pills.

But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful "up 支援する"—almost intolerably beautiful. Days of （疑いを）晴らす brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour—the purest vintage of winter's ワイン. Nights with their 解雇する／砲火／射撃 of 星／主役にするs. 冷淡な, exquisite winter sunrises. Lovely ferns of ice all over the windows of the Blue 城. Moonlight on birches in a silver 雪解け. Ragged 影をつくる／尾行するs on 風の強い evenings—torn, 新たな展開d, fantastic 影をつくる／尾行するs. 広大な／多数の／重要な silences, 厳格な，質素な and searching. Jewelled, 野蛮な hills. The sun suddenly breaking through grey clouds over long, white Mistawis. Icy-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cosy living-room, with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats seemed cosier than ever. Every hour brought a new 発覚 and wonder.

Barney ran Lady Jane into Roaring Abel's barn and taught Valancy how to snowshoe—Valancy, who せねばならない be laid up with bronchitis. But Valancy had not even a 冷淡な. Later on in the winter Barney had a terrible one and Valancy nursed him through it with a dread of 肺炎 in her heart. But Valancy's 冷淡なs seemed to have gone where old moons go. Which was luck—for she hadn't even Redfern's Liniment. She had thoughtfully bought a 瓶／封じ込める at the Port and Barney had 投げつけるd it into frozen Mistawis with a scowl.

"Bring no more of that devilish stuff here," he had ordered 簡潔に. It was the first and last time he had spoken 厳しく to her.

They went for long tramps through the exquisite reticence of winter 支持を得ようと努めるd and the silver ジャングルs of 霜d trees, and 設立する loveliness everywhere.

At times they seemed to be walking through a spellbound world of 水晶 and pearl, so white and radiant were clearings and lakes and sky. The 空気／公表する was so crisp and （疑いを）晴らす that it was half intoxicating.

Once they stood in a hesitation of ecstasy at the 入り口 of a 狭くする path between 階級s of birches. Every twig and spray was 輪郭（を描く）d in snow. The undergrowth along its 味方するs was a little fairy forest 削減（する） out of marble. The 影をつくる／尾行するs cast by the pale 日光 were 罰金 and spiritual.

"Come away," said Barney, turning. "We must not commit the desecration of tramping through there."

One evening they （機の）カム upon a snowdrift far 支援する in an old （疑いを）晴らすing which was in the exact likeness of a beautiful woman's profile. Seen too の近くに by, the resemblance was lost, as in the fairy-tale of the 城 of St. John. Seen from behind, it was a shapeless oddity. But at just the 権利 distance and angle the 輪郭（を描く） was so perfect that when they （機の）カム suddenly upon it, gleaming out against the dark background of spruce in the glow of winter sunset they both exclaimed in amazement. There was a low, noble brow, a straight, classic nose, lips and chin and cheek-curve modelled as if some goddess of old time had sat to the sculptor, and a breast of such 冷淡な, swelling 潔白 as the very spirit of the winter 支持を得ようと努めるd might 陳列する，発揮する.

"'All the beauty that old Greece and Rome, sung, painted, taught'," 引用するd Barney.

"And to think no human 注目する，もくろむs save ours have seen or will see it," breathed Valancy, who felt at times as if she were living in a 調書をとる／予約する by John Foster. As she looked around her she 解任するd some passages she had 示すd in the new Foster 調書をとる／予約する Barney had brought her from the Port—with an adjuration not to 推定する／予想する him to read or listen to it.

"'All the tintings of winter 支持を得ようと努めるd are 極端に delicate and elusive'," 解任するd Valancy. "'When the 簡潔な／要約する afternoon 病弱なs and the sun just touches the 最高の，を越すs of the hills, there seems to be all over the 支持を得ようと努めるd an 豊富, not of colour, but of the spirit of colour. There is really nothing but pure white after all, but one has the impression of fairy-like blendings of rose and violet, opal and heliotrope on the slopes—in the dingles and along the curves of the forest-land. You feel sure the 色合い is there, but when you look at it 直接／まっすぐに it is gone. From the corner of your 注目する，もくろむ you are aware that it is lurking over yonder in a 位置／汚点／見つけ出す where there was nothing but pale 潔白 a moment ago. Only just when the sun is setting is there a (n)艦隊／(a)素早いing moment of real colour. Then the redness streams out over the snow and incarnadines the hills and rivers and smites the crest of the pines with 炎上. Just a few minutes of transfiguration and 発覚—and it is gone.'

"I wonder if John Foster ever spent a winter in Mistawis," said Valancy.

"Not likely," scoffed Barney. "People who 令状 tosh like that 一般に 令状 it in a warm house on some smug city street."

"You are too hard on John Foster," said Valancy 厳しく. "No one could have written that little paragraph I read you last night without having seen it first—you know he couldn't."

"I didn't listen to it," said Barney morosely. "You know I told you I wouldn't."

"Then you've got to listen to it now," 固執するd Valancy. She made him stand still on his snowshoes while she repeated it.

"'She is a rare artist, this old Mother Nature, who 作品 "for the joy of working" and not in any spirit of vain show. Today the モミ 支持を得ようと努めるd are a symphony of greens and greys, so subtle that you cannot tell where one shade begins to be the other. Grey trunk, green bough, grey-green moss above the white, grey-影をつくる／尾行するd 床に打ち倒す. Yet the old gypsy doesn't like unrelieved monotones. She must have a dash of colour. See it. A broken dead モミ bough, of a beautiful red-brown, swinging の中で the 耐えるd of moss'."

"Good Lord, do you learn all that fellow's 調書をとる／予約するs by heart?" was Barney's disgusted reaction as he strode off.

"John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs were all that saved my soul alive the past five years," averred Valancy. "Oh, Barney, look at that exquisite filigree of snow in the furrows of that old elm-tree trunk."

When they （機の）カム out to the lake they changed from snowshoes to skates and skated home. For a wonder Valancy had learned, when she was a little schoolgirl, to skate on the pond behind the Deerwood school. She never had any skates of her own, but some of the other girls had lent her theirs and she seemed to have a natural knack of it. Uncle Benjamin had once 約束d her a pair of skates for Christmas, but when Christmas （機の）カム he had given her rubbers instead. She had never skated since she grew up, but the old trick （機の）カム 支援する quickly, and glorious were the hours she and Barney spent skimming over the white lakes and past the dark islands where the summer cottages were の近くにd and silent. Tonight they flew 負かす／撃墜する Mistawis before the 勝利，勝つd, in an exhilaration that crimsoned Valancy's cheeks under her white tam. And at the end was her dear little house, on the island of pines, with a 塗装 of snow on its roof, sparkling in the moonlight. Its windows glinted impishly at her in the 逸脱する gleams.

"Looks 正確に／まさに like a picture-調書をとる／予約する, doesn't it?" said Barney.

They had a lovely Christmas. No 急ぐ. No 緊急発進する. No niggling 試みる／企てるs to make ends 会合，会う. No wild 成果／努力 to remember whether she hadn't given the same 肉親，親類d of 現在の to the same person two Christmases before—no 暴徒 of last-minute shoppers—no dreary family "再会s" where she sat mute and unimportant—no attacks of "神経s." They decorated the Blue 城 with pine boughs, and Valancy made delightful little tinsel 星／主役にするs and hung them up まっただ中に the 青葉. She cooked a dinner to which Barney did 十分な 司法（官）, while Good Luck and Banjo 選ぶd the bones.

"A land that can produce a goose like that is an admirable land," 公約するd Barney. "Canada forever!" And they drank to the Union Jack a 瓶／封じ込める of dandelion ワイン that Cousin Georgiana had given Valancy along with the bedspread.

"One never knows," Cousin Georgiana had said solemnly, "when one may need a little 興奮剤."

Barney had asked Valancy what she 手配中の，お尋ね者 for a Christmas 現在の.

"Something frivolous and unnecessary," said Valancy, who had got a pair of goloshes last Christmas and two long-sleeved, woolen undervests the year before. And so on 支援する.

To her delight, Barney gave her a necklace of pearl beads. Valancy had 手配中の，お尋ね者 a string of 乳の pearl beads—like congealed moonshine—all her life. And these were so pretty. All that worried her was that they were really too good. They must have cost a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定—fifteen dollars, at least. Could Barney afford that? She didn't know a thing about his 財政／金融s. She had 辞退するd to let him buy any of her 着せる／賦与するs—she had enough for that, she told him, as long as she would need 着せる／賦与するs. In a 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, 黒人／ボイコット jar on the chimney-piece Barney put money for their 世帯 expenses—always enough. The jar was never empty, though Valancy never caught him 補充するing it. He couldn't have much, of course, and that necklace—but Valancy 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd care aside. She would wear it and enjoy it. It was the first pretty thing she had ever had.

CHAPTER XXXII

New year. The old, shabby, inglorious 生き延びるd calendar （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する. The new one went up. January was a month of 嵐／襲撃するs. It snowed for three weeks on end. The 温度計 went miles below 無 and stayed there. But, as Barney and Valancy pointed out to each other, there were no mosquitoes. And the roar and crackle of their big 解雇する／砲火／射撃 溺死するd the howls of the north 勝利，勝つd. Good Luck and Banjo waxed fat and developed resplendent coats of 厚い, silky fur. 阻止する and Tuck had gone.

"But they'll come 支援する in spring," 約束d Barney.

There was no monotony. いつかs they had 劇の little 私的な spats that never even thought of becoming quarrels. いつかs Roaring Abel dropped in—for an evening or a whole day—with his old tartan cap and his long red 耐えるd coated with snow. He 一般に brought his fiddle and played for them, to the delight of all except Banjo, who would go 一時的に insane and 退却／保養地 under Valancy's bed. いつかs Abel and Barney talked while Valancy made candy for them; いつかs they sat and smoked in silence à la Tennyson and Carlyle, until the Blue 城 reeked and Valancy fled to the open. いつかs they played checkers ひどく and silently the whole night through. いつかs they all ate the russet apples Abel had brought, while the jolly old clock ticked the delightful minutes away.

"A plate of apples, an 射撃を開始する, and 'a jolly goode 調書をとる／予約する' are a fair 代用品，人 for heaven," 公約するd Barney. "Any one can have the streets of gold. Let's have another whack at Carman."

It was easier now for the Stirlings to believe Valancy of the dead. Not even 薄暗い rumours of her having been over at the Port （機の）カム to trouble them, though she and Barney used to skate there occasionally to see a movie and eat hot dogs shamelessly at the corner stand afterwards. 推定では 非，不，無 of the Stirlings ever thought about her—except Cousin Georgiana, who used to 嘘（をつく） awake worrying about poor Doss. Did she have enough to eat? Was that dreadful creature good to her? Was she warm enough at nights?

Valancy was やめる warm at nights. She used to wake up and revel silently in the cosiness of those winter nights on that little island in the frozen lake. The nights of other winters had been so 冷淡な and long. Valancy hated to wake up in them and think about the bleakness and emptiness of the day that had passed and the bleakness and emptiness of the day that would come. Now she almost counted that night lost on which she didn't wake up and 嘘（をつく） awake for half an hour just 存在 happy, while Barney's 正規の／正選手 breathing went on beside her, and through the open door the smouldering brands in the fireplace winked at her in the gloom. It was very nice to feel a little Lucky cat jump up on your bed in the 不明瞭 and snuggle 負かす／撃墜する at your feet, purring; but Banjo would be sitting dourly by himself out in 前線 of the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 like a brooding demon. At such moments Banjo was anything but canny, but Valancy loved his uncanniness.

The 味方する of the bed had to be 権利 against the window. There was no other place for it in the tiny room. Valancy, lying there, could look out of the window, through the big pine boughs that 現実に touched it, away up Mistawis, white and lustrous as a pavement of pearl, or dark and terrible in the 嵐／襲撃する. いつかs the pine boughs tapped against the panes with friendly signals. いつかs she heard the little hissing whisper of snow against them 権利 at her 味方する. Some nights the whole outer world seemed given over to the empery of silence; then （機の）カム nights when there would be a majestic sweep of 勝利，勝つd in the pines; nights of dear starlight when it whistled freakishly and joyously around the Blue 城; brooding nights before 嵐／襲撃する when it crept along the 床に打ち倒す of the lake with a low, wailing cry of brooding and mystery. Valancy wasted many perfectly good sleeping hours in these delightful communings. But she could sleep as long in the morning as she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to. Nobody cared. Barney cooked his own breakfast of bacon and eggs and then shut himself up in Bluebeard's 議会 till supper time. Then they had an evening of reading and talk. They talked about everything in this world and a good many things in other worlds. They laughed over their own jokes until the Blue 城 re-echoed.

"You do laugh beautifully," Barney told her once. "It makes me want to laugh just to hear you laugh. There's a trick about your laugh—as if there were so much more fun 支援する of it that you wouldn't let out. Did you laugh like that before you （機の）カム to Mistawis, Moonlight?"

"I never laughed at all—really. I used to giggle foolishly when I felt I was 推定する／予想するd to. But now—the laugh just comes."

It struck Valancy more than once that Barney himself laughed a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 oftener than he used to and that his laugh had changed. It had become wholesome. She rarely heard the little 冷笑的な 公式文書，認める in it now. Could a man laugh like that who had 罪，犯罪s on his 良心? Yet Barney must have done something. Valancy had indifferently made up her mind as to what he had done. She 結論するd he was a defaulting bank cashier. She had 設立する in one of Barney's 調書をとる／予約するs an old clipping 削減（する） from a Montreal paper in which a 消えるd, defaulting cashier was 述べるd. The description 適用するd to Barney—同様に as to half a dozen other men Valancy knew—and from some casual 発言／述べるs he had dropped from time to time she 結論するd he knew Montreal rather 井戸／弁護士席. Valancy had it all 人物／姿／数字d out in the 支援する of her mind. Barney had been in a bank. He was tempted to take some money to 推測する—meaning, of course, to put it 支援する. He had got in deeper and deeper, until he 設立する there was nothing for it but flight. It had happened so to 得点する／非難する／２０s of men. He had, Valancy was 絶対 確かな , never meant to do wrong. Of course, the 指名する of the man in the clipping was Bernard Craig. But Valancy had always thought Snaith was an 偽名，通称. Not that it 事柄d.

Valancy had only one unhappy night that winter. It （機の）カム in late March when most of the snow had gone and 阻止する and Tuck had returned. Barney had gone off in the afternoon for a long, woodland tramp, 説 he would be 支援する by dark if all went 井戸／弁護士席. Soon after he had gone it had begun to snow. The 勝利，勝つd rose and presently Mistawis was in the 支配する of one of the worst 嵐／襲撃するs of the winter. It tore up the lake and struck at the little house. The dark angry 支持を得ようと努めるd on the 本土／大陸 scowled at Valancy, menace in the 投げ上げる／ボディチェックする of their boughs, 脅しs in their 風の強い gloom, terror in the roar of their hearts. The trees on the island crouched in 恐れる. Valancy spent the night 密談する／（身体を）寄せ集めるd on the rug before the 解雇する／砲火／射撃, her 直面する buried in her 手渡すs, when she was not vainly peering from the oriel in a futile 成果／努力 to see through the furious smoke of 勝利，勝つd and snow that had once been blue-dimpled Mistawis. Where was Barney? Lost on the merciless lakes? 沈むing exhausted in the drifts of the pathless 支持を得ようと努めるd? Valancy died a hundred deaths that night and paid in 十分な for all the happiness of her Blue 城. When morning （機の）カム the 嵐／襲撃する broke and （疑いを）晴らすd; the sun shone gloriously over Mistawis; and at noon Barney （機の）カム home. Valancy saw him from the oriel as he （機の）カム around a wooded point, slender and 黒人／ボイコット against the glistening white world. She did not run to 会合，会う him. Something happened to her 膝s and she dropped 負かす／撃墜する on Banjo's 議長，司会を務める. Luckily Banjo got out from under in time, his whiskers bristling with indignation. Barney 設立する her there, her 長，率いる buried in her 手渡すs.

"Barney, I thought you were dead," she whispered.

Barney hooted.

"After two years of the Klondike did you think a baby 嵐／襲撃する like this could get me? I spent the night in that old 板材 shanty over by Muskoka. At bit 冷淡な but snug enough. Little goose! Your 注目する，もくろむs look like burnt 穴を開けるs in a 一面に覆う／毛布. Did you sit up here all night worrying over an old woodsman like me?"

"Yes," said Valancy. "I—couldn't help it. The 嵐／襲撃する seemed so wild. Anybody might have been lost in it. When—I saw you—come 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the point—there—something happened to me. I don't know what. It was as if I had died and come 支援する to life. I can't 述べる it any other way."

CHAPTER XXXIII

Spring. Mistawis 黒人／ボイコット and sullen for a week or two, then 炎上ing in sapphire and turquoise, lilac and rose again, laughing through the oriel, caressing its amethyst islands, rippling under 勝利，勝つd soft as silk. Frogs, little green wizards of 押し寄せる／沼地 and pool, singing everywhere in the long twilights and long into the nights; islands fairy-like in a green 煙霧; the evanescent beauty of wild young trees in 早期に leaf; 霜-like loveliness of the new foliage of juniper-trees; the 支持を得ようと努めるd putting on a fashion of spring flowers, dainty, spiritual things akin to the soul of the wilderness; red もや on the maples; willows decked out with glossy silver pussies; all the forgotten violets of Mistawis blooming again; 誘惑する of April moons.

"Think how many thousands of springs have been here on Mistawis—and all of them beautiful," said Valancy. "Oh, Barney, look at that wild plum! I will—I must 引用する from John Foster. There's a passage in one of his 調書をとる／予約するs—I've re-read it a hundred times. He must have written it before a tree just like that:

"'Behold the young wild plum-tree which has adorned herself after immemorial fashion in a wedding-隠す of 罰金 lace. The fingers of 支持を得ようと努めるd pixies must have woven it, for nothing like it ever （機の）カム from an earthly ぼんやり現れる. I 公約する the tree is conscious of its loveliness. It is bridling before our very 注目する，もくろむs—as if its beauty were not the most ephemeral thing in the 支持を得ようと努めるd, as it is the rarest and most 越えるing, for today it is and tomorrow it is not. Every south 勝利，勝つd purring through the boughs will winnow away a にわか雨 of slender petals. But what 事柄? Today it is queen of the wild places and it is always today in the 支持を得ようと努めるd.'"

"I'm sure you feel much better since you've got that out of your system," said Barney heartlessly.

"Here's a patch of dandelions," said Valancy, unsubdued. "Dandelions shouldn't grow in the 支持を得ようと努めるd, though. They 港／避難所't any sense of the fitness of things at all. They are too cheerful and self-満足させるd. They 港／避難所't any of the mystery and reserve of the real 支持を得ようと努めるd-flowers."

"In short, they've no secrets," said Barney. "But wait a bit. The 支持を得ようと努めるd will have their own way even with those obvious dandelions. In a little while all that obtrusive yellowness and complacency will be gone and we'll find here misty, phantom-like globes hovering over those long grasses in 十分な harmony with the traditions of the forest."

"That sounds John Fosterish," teased Valancy.

"What have I done that deserved a 激突する like that?" complained Barney.

One of the earliest 調印するs of spring was the renaissance of Lady Jane. Barney put her on roads that no other car would look at, and they went through Deerwood in mud to the axles. They passed several Stirlings, who groaned and 反映するd that now spring was come they would 遭遇（する） that shameless pair everywhere. Valancy, prowling about Deerwood shops, met Uncle Benjamin on the street; but he did not realise until he had gone two 封鎖するs その上の on that the girl in the scarlet-collared 一面に覆う／毛布 coat, with cheeks reddened in the sharp April 空気／公表する and the fringe of 黒人／ボイコット hair over laughing, slanted 注目する，もくろむs, was Valancy. When he did realise it, Uncle Benjamin was indignant. What 商売／仕事 had Valancy to look like—like—like a young girl? The way of the transgressor was hard. Had to be. Scriptural and proper. Yet Valancy's path couldn't be hard. She wouldn't look like that if it were. There was something wrong. It was almost enough to make a man turn modernist.

Barney and Valancy clanged on to the Port, so that it was dark when they went through Deerwood again. At her old home Valancy, 掴むd with a sudden impulse, got out, opened the little gate and tiptoed around to the sitting-room window. There sat her mother and Cousin Stickles drearily, grimly knitting. Baffling and 残忍な as ever. If they had looked the least bit lonesome Valancy would have gone in. But they did not. Valancy would not 乱す them for worlds.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Valancy had two wonderful moments that spring.

One day, coming home through the 支持を得ようと努めるd, with her 武器 十分な of 追跡するing arbutus and creeping spruce, she met a man who she knew must be Allan Tierney. Allan Tierney, the celebrated painter of beautiful women. He lived in New York in winter, but he owned an island cottage at the northern end of Mistawis to which he always （機の）カム the minute the ice was out of the lake. He was という評判の to be a lonely, eccentric man. He never flattered his sitters. There was no need to, for he would not paint any one who 要求するd flattery. To be painted by Allan Tierney was all the cachet of beauty a woman could 願望（する）. Valancy had heard so much about him that she couldn't help turning her 長，率いる 支援する over her shoulder for another shy, curious look at him. A 軸 of pale spring sunlight fell through a 広大な／多数の／重要な pine athwart her 明らかにする 黒人／ボイコット 長，率いる and her slanted 注目する，もくろむs. She wore a pale green sweater and had bound a fillet of linnaea vine about her hair. The feathery fountain of 追跡するing spruce overflower her 武器 and fell around her. Allan Tierney's 注目する，もくろむs lighted up.

"I've had a 報知係," said Barney the next afternoon, when Valancy had returned from another flower 追求（する），探索（する）.

"Who?" Valancy was surprised but indifferent. She began filling a basket with arbutus.

"Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight."

"Me!" Valancy dropped her basket and her arbutus. "You're laughing at me, Barney."

"I'm not. That's what Tierney （機の）カム for. To ask my 許可 to paint my wife—as the Spirit of Muskoka, or something like that."

"But—but—" stammered Valancy, "Allan Tierney never paints any but—any but—"

"Beautiful women," finished Barney. "譲歩するd. Q. E. D., Mistress Barney Snaith is a beautiful woman."

"Nonsense," said Valancy, stooping to retrieve her arbutus. "You know that's nonsense, Barney. I know I'm a heap better-looking than I was a year ago, but I'm not beautiful."

"Allan Tierney never makes a mistake," said Barney. "You forget, Moonlight, that there are different 肉親，親類d of beauty. Your imagination is obsessed by the very obvious type of your cousin Olive. Oh, I've seen her—she's a stunner—but you'd never catch Allan Tierney wanting to paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all her goods in the shop-window. But in your subconscious mind you have a 有罪の判決 that nobody can be beautiful who doesn't look like Olive. Also, you remember your 直面する as it was in the days when your soul was not 許すd to 向こうずね through it. Tierney said something about the curve of your cheek as you looked 支援する over your shoulder. You know I've often told you it was distracting. And he's やめる batty about your 注目する，もくろむs. If I wasn't 絶対 sure it was 単独で professional—he's really a crabbed old bachelor, you know—I'd be jealous."

"井戸／弁護士席, I don't want to be painted," said Valancy. "I hope you told him that."

"I couldn't tell him that. I didn't know what you 手配中の，お尋ね者. But I told him I didn't want my wife painted—hung up in a salon for the 暴徒 to 星／主役にする at. Belonging to another man. For of course I couldn't buy the picture. So even if you had 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be painted, Moonlight, your tyrannous husband would not have permitted it. Tierney was a bit squiffy. He isn't used to 存在 turned 負かす／撃墜する like that. His requests are almost like 王族's."

"But we are 無法者s," laughed Valancy. "We 屈服する to no 法令s—we 認める no 主権，独立."

In her heart she thought unashamedly:

"I wish Olive could know that Allan Tierney 手配中の，お尋ね者 to paint me. Me! Little-old-maid-Valancy-Stirling-that-was."

Her second wonder-moment （機の）カム one evening in May. She realised that Barney 現実に liked her. She had always hoped he did, but いつかs she had a little, disagreeable, haunting dread that he was just 肉親，親類d and nice and chummy out of pity; knowing that she hadn't long to live and 決定するd she should have a good time as long as she did live; but away 支援する in his mind rather looking 今後 to freedom again, with no intrusive woman creature in his island fastness and no chattering thing beside him in his woodland prowls. She knew he could never love her. She did not even want him to. If he loved her he would be unhappy when she died—Valancy never flinched from the plain word. No "passing away" for her. And she did not want him to be the least unhappy. But neither did she want him to be glad—or relieved. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 him to like her and 行方不明になる her as a good chum. But she had never been sure until this night that he did.

They had walked over the hills in the sunset. They had the delight of discovering a virgin spring in a ferny hollow and had drunk together from it out of a birch-bark cup; they had come to an old 宙返り／暴落する-負かす／撃墜する rail 盗品故買者 and sat on it for a long time. They didn't talk much, but Valancy had a curious sense of oneness. She knew that she couldn't have felt that if he hadn't liked her.

"You nice little thing," said Barney suddenly. "Oh, you nice little thing! いつかs I feel you're too nice to be real—that I'm just dreaming you."

"Why can't I die now—this very minute—when I am so happy!" thought Valancy.

井戸／弁護士席, it couldn't be so very long now. Somehow, Valancy had always felt she would live out the year Dr. Trent had allotted. She had not been careful—she had never tried to be. But, somehow, she had always counted on living out her year. She had not let herself think about it at all. But now, sitting here beside Barney, with her 手渡す in his, a sudden realisation （機の）カム to her. She had not had a heart attack for a long while—two months at least. The last one she had had was two or three nights before Barney was out in the 嵐／襲撃する. Since then she had not remembered she had a heart. 井戸／弁護士席, no 疑問, it betokened the nearness of the end. Nature had given up the struggle. There would be no more 苦痛.

"I'm afraid heaven will be very dull after this past year," thought Valancy. "But perhaps one will not remember. Would that be—nice? No, no. I don't want to forget Barney. I'd rather be 哀れな in heaven remembering him than happy forgetting him. And I'll always remember through all eternity—that he really, really liked me."

CHAPTER XXXV

Thirty seconds can be very long いつかs. Long enough to work a 奇蹟 or a 革命. In thirty seconds life changed wholly for Barney and Valancy Snaith.

They had gone around the lake one June evening in their disappearing プロペラ, fished for an hour in a little creek, left their boat there, and walked up through the 支持を得ようと努めるd to Port Lawrence two miles away. Valancy prowled a bit in the shops and got herself a new pair of sensible shoes. Her old pair had suddenly and 完全に given out, and this evening she had been compelled to put on the little fancy pair of 特許-leather with rather high, slender heels, which she had bought in a fit of folly one day in the winter because of their beauty and because she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to make one foolish, extravagant 購入（する） in her life. She いつかs put them on of an evening in the Blue 城, but this was the first time she had worn them outside. She had not 設立する it any too 平易な walking up through the 支持を得ようと努めるd in them, and Barney guyed her unmercifully about them. But in spite of the inconvenience, Valancy 内密に rather liked the look of her 削減する ankles and high instep above those pretty, foolish shoes and did not change them in the shop as she might have done.

The sun was hanging low above the pines when they left Port Lawrence. To the north of it the 支持を得ようと努めるd の近くにd around the town やめる suddenly. Valancy always had a sense of stepping from one world to another—from reality to fairyland—when she went out of Port Lawrence and in a twinkling 設立する it shut off behind her by the armies of the pines.

A mile and a half from Port Lawrence there was a small 鉄道／強行採決する 駅／配置する with a little 駅／配置する-house which at this hour of the day was 砂漠d, since no 地元の train was 予定. Not a soul was in sight when Barney and Valancy 現れるd from the 支持を得ようと努めるd. Off to the left a sudden curve in the 跡をつける hid it from 見解（をとる）, but over the tree-最高の，を越すs beyond, the long plume of smoke betokened the approach of a through train. The rails were vibrating to its 雷鳴 as Barney stepped across the switch. Valancy was a few steps behind him, loitering to gather June-bells along the little, winding path. But there was plenty of time to get across before the train （機の）カム. She stepped unconcernedly over the first rail.

She could never tell how it happened. The 続いて起こるing thirty seconds always seemed in her recollection like a 大混乱／混沌とした nightmare in which she 耐えるd the agony of a thousand lifetimes.

The heel of her pretty, foolish shoe caught in a crevice of the switch. She could not pull it loose. "Barney—Barney!" she called in alarm. Barney turned—saw her predicament—saw her ashen 直面する—dashed 支援する. He tried to pull her （疑いを）晴らす—he tried to wrench her foot from the 刑務所，拘置所ing 持つ／拘留する. In vain. In a moment the train would sweep around the curve—would be on them.

"Go—go—quick—you'll be killed, Barney!" shrieked Valancy, trying to 押し進める him away.

Barney dropped on his 膝s, ghost-white, frantically 涙／ほころびing at her shoe-lace. The knot 反抗するd his trembling fingers. He snatched a knife from his pocket and 削除するd at it. Valancy still strove blindly to 押し進める him away. Her mind was 十分な of the hideous thought that Barney was going to be killed. She had no thought for her own danger.

"Barney—go—go—for God's sake—go!"

"Never!" muttered Barney between his 始める，決める teeth. He gave one mad wrench at the lace. As the train 雷鳴d around the curve he sprang up and caught Valancy—dragging her （疑いを）晴らす, leaving the shoe behind her. The 勝利，勝つd from the train as it swept by turned to icy 冷淡な the streaming perspiration on his 直面する.

"Thank God!" he breathed.

For a moment they stood stupidly 星／主役にするing at each other, two white, shaken, wild-注目する，もくろむd creatures. Then they つまずくd over to the little seat at the end of the 駅／配置する-house and dropped on it. Barney buried his 直面する in his 手渡すs and said not a word. Valancy sat, 星／主役にするing straight ahead of her with unseeing 注目する，もくろむs at the 広大な／多数の／重要な pine 支持を得ようと努めるd, the stumps of the （疑いを）晴らすing, the long, gleaming rails. There was only one thought in her dazed mind—a thought that seemed to 燃やす it as a shaving of 解雇する／砲火／射撃 might 燃やす her 団体／死体.

Dr. Trent had told her over a year ago that she had a serious form of heart-病気—that any excitement might to 致命的な.

If that were so, why was she not dead now? This very minute? She had just experienced as much and as terrible excitement as most people experience in a lifetime, （人が）群がるd into that endless thirty seconds. Yet she had not died of it. She was not an iota the worse for it. A little wobbly at the 膝s, as any one would have been; a quicker heart-（警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域, as any one would have; nothing more.

Why!

Was it possible Dr. Trent had made a mistake?

Valancy shivered as if a 冷淡な 勝利，勝つd had suddenly 冷気／寒がらせるd her to the soul. She looked at Barney, hunched up beside her. His silence was very eloquent: Had the same thought occurred to him? Did he suddenly find himself 直面するd by the appalling 疑惑 that he was married, not for a few months or a year, but for good and all to a woman he did not love and who had foisted herself upon him by some trick or 嘘（をつく）? Valancy turned sick before the horror of it. It could not be. It would be too cruel—too devilish. Dr. Trent couldn't have made a mistake. Impossible. He was one of the best heart specialists in Ontario. She was foolish—unnerved by the 最近の horror. She remembered some of the hideous spasms of 苦痛 she had had. There must be something serious the 事柄 with her heart to account for them.

But she had not had any for nearly three months.

Why!

Presently Barney bestirred himself. He stood up, without looking at Valancy, and said casually:

"I suppose we'd better be 引き上げ（る）ing 支援する. Sun's getting low. Are your good for the 残り／休憩（する） of the road?"

"I think so," said Valancy miserably.

Barney went across the （疑いを）晴らすing and 選ぶd up the 小包 he had dropped—the 小包 含む／封じ込めるing her new shoes. He brought it to her and let her take out the shoes and put them on without any 援助, while he stood with his 支援する to her and looked out over the pines.

They walked in silence 負かす／撃墜する the shadowy 追跡する to the lake. In silence Barney steered his boat into the sunset 奇蹟 that was Mistawis. In silence they went around feathery headlands and across 珊瑚 bays and silver rivers where canoes were slipping up and 負かす／撃墜する in the afterglow. In silence they went past cottages echoing with music and laughter. In silence drew up at the 上陸-place below the Blue 城.

Valancy went up the 激しく揺する steps and into the house. She dropped miserably on the first 議長，司会を務める she （機の）カム to and sat there 星／主役にするing through the oriel, oblivious of Good Luck's frantic purrs of joy and Banjo's savage glares of 抗議する at her occupancy of his 議長，司会を務める.

Barney （機の）カム in a few minutes later. He did not come 近づく her, but he stood behind her and asked gently if she felt any the worse for her experience. Valancy would have given her year of happiness to have been able honesty to answer "Yes."

"No," she said きっぱりと.

Barney went into Bluebeard's 議会 and shut the door. She heard him pacing up and 負かす／撃墜する—up and 負かす／撃墜する. He had never paced like that before.

And an hour ago—only an hour ago—she had been so happy!

CHAPTER XXXVI

Finally Valancy went to bed. Before she went she re-read Dr. Trent's letter. It 慰安d her a little. So 肯定的な. So 保証するd. The 令状ing so 黒人／ボイコット and 安定した. Not the 令状ing of a man who didn't know what he was 令状ing about. But she could not sleep. She pretended to be asleep when Barney （機の）カム in. Barney pretended to go to sleep. But Valancy knew perfectly 井戸／弁護士席 he wasn't sleeping any more than she was. She knew he was lying there, 星／主役にするing through the 不明瞭. Thinking of what? Trying to 直面する—what?

Valancy, who had spent so many happy wakeful hours of night lying by that window, now paid the price of them all in this one night of 悲惨. A horrible, portentous fact was slowly ぼんやり現れるing out before her from the 星雲 of surmise and 恐れる. She could not shut her 注目する，もくろむs to it—押し進める it away—ignore it.

There could be nothing 本気で wrong with her heart, no 事柄 what Dr. Trent had said. If there had been, those thirty seconds would have killed her. It was no use to 解任する Dr. Trent's letter and 評判. The greatest specialists made mistakes いつかs. Dr. Trent had made one.

に向かって morning Valancy fell into a fitful dose with ridiculous dreams. One of them was of Barney taunting her with having tricked him. In her dream she lost her temper and struck him violently on the 長，率いる with her rolling-pin. He 証明するd to be made of glass and shivered into 後援s all over the 床に打ち倒す. She woke with a cry of horror—a gasp of 救済—a short laugh over the absurdity of her dream—a 哀れな sickening recollection of what had happened.

Barney was gone. Valancy knew, as people いつかs know things—inescapably, without 存在 told—that he was not in the house or in Bluebeard's 議会 either. There was a curious silence in the living-room. A silence with something uncanny about it. The old clock had stopped. Barney must have forgotten to 勝利，勝つd it up, something he had never done before. The room without it was dead, though the 日光 streamed in through the oriel and dimples of light from the dancing waves beyond quivered over the 塀で囲むs.

The canoe was gone but Lady Jane was under the 本土／大陸 trees. So Barney had betaken himself to the wilds. He would not return till night—perhaps not even then. He must be angry with her. That furious silence of his must mean 怒り／怒る—冷淡な, 深い, 正当と認められる 憤慨. 井戸／弁護士席, Valancy knew what she must do first. She was not 苦しむing very 熱心に now. Yet the curious numbness that pervaded her 存在 was in a way worse than 苦痛. It was as if something in her had died. She 軍隊d herself to cook and eat a little breakfast. Mechanically she put the Blue 城 in perfect order. Then she put on her hat and coat, locked the door and hid the 重要な in the hollow of the old pine and crossed to the 本土／大陸 in the モーター boat. She was going into Deerwood to see Dr. Trent. She must know.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Dr. Trent looked at her blankly and fumbled の中で his recollections.

"Er—行方不明になる—行方不明になる—"

"Mrs. Snaith," said Valancy 静かに. "I was 行方不明になる Valancy Stirling when I （機の）カム to you last May—over a year ago. I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 協議する you about my heart."

Dr. Trent's 直面する （疑いを）晴らすd.

"Oh, of course. I remember now. I'm really not to 非難する for not knowing you. You've changed—splendidly. And married. 井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, it has agreed with you. You don't look much like an 無効の now, hey? I remember that day. I was 不正に upset. 審理，公聴会 about poor Ned bowled me over. But Ned's as good as new and you, too, evidently. I told you so, you know—told you there was nothing to worry over."

Valancy looked at him.

"You told me, in your letter," she said slowly, with a curious feeling that some one else was talking through her lips, "that I had angina pectoris—in the last 行う／開催する／段階s—複雑にするd with an aneurism. That I might die any minute—that I couldn't live longer than a year."

Dr. Trent 星／主役にするd at her.

"Impossible!" he said blankly. "I couldn't have told you that!"

Valancy took his letter from her 捕らえる、獲得する and 手渡すd it to him.

"行方不明になる Valancy Stirling," he read. "Yes—yes. Of course I wrote you—on the train—that night. But I told you there was nothing serious—"

"Read your letter," 主張するd Valancy.

Dr. Trent took it out—広げるd it—ちらりと見ることd over it. A 狼狽d look （機の）カム into his 直面する. He jumped to his feet and strode agitatedly about the room.

"Good heavens! This is the letter I meant for old 行方不明になる Jane 英貨の／純銀の. From Port Lawrence. She was here that day, too. I sent you the wrong letter. What unpardonable carelessness! But I was beside myself that night. My God, and you believed that—you believed—but you didn't—you went to another doctor—"

Valancy stood up, turned 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, looked foolishly about her and sat 負かす／撃墜する again.

"I believed it," she said faintly. "I didn't go to any other doctor. I—I—it would take too long to explain. But I believed I was going to die soon."

Dr. Trent 停止（させる）d before her.

"I can never 許す myself. What a year you must have had! But you don't look—I can't understand!"

"Never mind," said Valancy dully. "And so there's nothing the 事柄 with my heart?"

"井戸／弁護士席, nothing serious. You had what is called pseudo-angina. It's never 致命的な—passes away 完全に with proper 治療. Or いつかs with a shock of joy. Have you been troubled much with it?"

"Not at all since March," answered Valancy. She remembered the marvellous feeling of re-創造 she had had when she saw Barney coming home 安全な after the 嵐／襲撃する. Had that "shock of joy" cured her?

"Then likely you're all 権利. I told you what to do in the letter you should have got. And of course I supposed you'd go to another doctor. Child, why didn't you?"

"I didn't want anybody to know."

"Idiot," said Dr. Trent bluntly. "I can't understand such folly. And poor old 行方不明になる 英貨の／純銀の. She must have got your letter—telling her there was nothing serious the 事柄. 井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, it couldn't have made any difference. Her 事例／患者 was hopeless. Nothing that she could have done or left undone could have made any difference. I was surprised she lived as long as she did—two months. She was here that day—not long before you. I hated to tell her the truth. You think I'm a blunt old curmudgeon—and my letters are blunt enough. I can't 軟化する things. But I'm a snivelling coward when it comes to telling a woman 直面する to 直面する that she's got to die soon. I told her I'd look up some features of the 事例／患者 I wasn't やめる sure of and let her know next day. But you got her letter—look here, "Dear 行方不明になる S-t-e-r-l-i-n-g.'"

"Yes. I noticed that. But I thought it a mistake. I didn't know there were any 英貨の／純銀のs in Port Lawrence."

"She was the only one. A lonely old soul. Lived by herself with only a little home girl. She died two months after she was here—died in her sleep. My mistake couldn't have made any difference to her. But you! I can't 許す myself for （打撃，刑罰などを）与えるing a year's 悲惨 on you. It's time I retired, all 権利, when I do things like that—even if my son was supposed to be fatally 負傷させるd. Can you ever 許す me?"

A year of 悲惨! Valancy smiled a 拷問d smile as she thought of all the happiness Dr. Trent's mistake had bought her. But she was 支払う／賃金ing for it now—oh, she was 支払う／賃金ing. If to feel was to live she was living with a vengeance.

She let Dr. Trent 診察する her and answered all his questions. When he told her she was fit as a fiddle and would probably live to be a hundred, she got up and went away silently. She knew that there were a 広大な／多数の／重要な many horrible things outside waiting to be thought over. Dr. Trent thought she was 半端物. Anybody would have thought, from her hopeless 注目する，もくろむs and woebegone 直面する, that he had given her a 宣告，判決 of death instead of life. Snaith? Snaith? Who the devil had she married? He had never heard of Snaiths in Deerwood. And she had been such a sallow, faded, little old maid. Gad, but marriage had made a difference in her, anyhow, whoever Snaith was. Snaith? Dr. Trent remembered. That rapscallion "up 支援する!" Had Valancy Stirling married him? And her 一族／派閥 had let her! 井戸／弁護士席, probably that solved the mystery. She had married in haste and repented at leisure, and that was why she wasn't overjoyed at learning she was a good 保険 prospect, after all. Married! To God knew whom! Or what! Jailbird? Defaulter? 逃亡者／はかないもの from 司法（官）? It must be pretty bad if she had looked to death as a 解放（する）, poor girl. But why were women such fools? Dr. Trent 解任するd Valancy from his mind, though to the day of his death he was ashamed of putting those letters into the wrong envelopes.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Valancy walked quickly through the 支援する streets and through Lover's 小道／航路. She did not want to 会合，会う any one she knew. She didn't want to 会合，会う even people she didn't know. She hated to be seen. Her mind was so 混乱させるd, so torn, so messy. She felt that her 外見 must be the same. She drew a sobbing breath of 救済 as she left the village behind and 設立する herself on the "up 支援する" road. There was little 恐れる of 会合 any one she knew here. The cars that fled by her with raucous shrieks were filled with strangers. One of them was packed with young people who whirled past her singing uproariously:

"My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever,
Oh, I hope it won't leave her,
For I want to be 選び出す／独身 again."

Valancy flinched as if one of them had leaned from the car and 削減（する） her across the 直面する with a whip.

She had made a covenant with death and death had cheated her. Now life stood mocking her. She had 罠にかける Barney. 罠にかける him into marrying her. And 離婚 was so hard to get in Ontario. So expensive. And Barney was poor.

With life, 恐れる had come 支援する into her heart. Sickening 恐れる. 恐れる of what Barney would think. Would say. 恐れる of the 未来 that must be lived without him. 恐れる of her 侮辱d, repudiated 一族／派閥.

She had had one draught from a divine cup and now it was dashed from her lips. With no 肉親，親類d, friendly death to 救助（する） her. She must go on living and longing for it. Everything was spoiled, smirched, defaced. Even that year in the Blue 城. Even her unashamed love for Barney. It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid because death was gone. How could any one 耐える an unbearable thing?

She must go 支援する and tell him. Make him believe she had not meant to trick him—she must make him believe that. She must say good-bye to her Blue 城 and return to the brick house on Elm Street. 支援する to everything she had thought left behind forever. The old bondage—the old 恐れるs. But that did not 事柄. All that 事柄d now was that Barney must somehow be made to believe she had not consciously tricked him.

When Valancy reached the pines by the lake she was brought out of her daze of 苦痛 by a startling sight. There, parked by the 味方する of old, 乱打するd ragged Lady Jane, was another car. A wonderful car. A purple car. Not a dark, 王室の purple but a 露骨な／あからさまの, 叫び声をあげるing purple. It shone like a mirror and its 内部の plainly 示すd the car caste of Vere de Vere. In the driver's seat sat a haughty chauffeur in livery. And in the tonneau sat a man who opened the door and bounced out nimbly as Valancy （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する the path to the 上陸-place. He stood under the pines waiting for her and Valancy took in every 詳細（に述べる） of him.

A stout, short, pudgy man, with a 幅の広い, rubicund, good-humoured 直面する—a clean-shaven 直面する, though an unparalysed little imp at the 支援する of Valancy's paralysed mind 示唆するd the thought, "Such a 直面する should have a fringe of white whisker around it." Old-fashioned, steel-rimmed spectacles on 目だつ blue 注目する，もくろむs. A pursey mouth; a little 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, knobby nose. Where—where—where, groped Valancy, had she seen that 直面する before? It seemed as familiar to her as her own.

The stranger wore a green hat and a light fawn overcoat over a 控訴 of a loud check pattern. His tie was a brilliant green of はしけ shade; on the plump 手渡す he outstretched to 迎撃する Valancy an enormous diamond winked at her. But he had a pleasant, fatherly smile, and in his hearty, unmodulated 発言する／表明する was a （犯罪の）一味 of something that attracted her.

"Can you tell me, 行方不明になる, if that house yonder belongs to a Mr. Redfern? And if so, how can I get to it?"

Redfern! A 見通し of 瓶／封じ込めるs seemed to dance before Valancy's 注目する，もくろむs—long 瓶／封じ込めるs of bitters—一連の会議、交渉／完成する 瓶／封じ込めるs of hair tonic—square 瓶／封じ込めるs of liniment—short, corpulent little 瓶／封じ込めるs of purple pills—and all of them 耐えるing that very 繁栄する, beaming moon-直面する and steel-rimmed spectacles on the label. Dr. Redfern!

"No," said Valancy faintly. "No—that house belongs to Mr. Snaith."

Dr. Redfern nodded.

"Yes, I understand Bernie's been calling himself Snaith. 井戸／弁護士席, it's his middle 指名する—was his poor mother's. Bernard Snaith Redfern—that's him. And now, 行方不明になる, you can tell me how to get over to that island? Nobody seems to be home there. I've done some waving and yelling. Henry, there, wouldn't yell. He's a one-職業 man. But old Doc Redfern can yell with the best of them yet, and ain't above doing it. Raised nothing but a couple of crows. Guess Bernie's out for the day."

"He was away when I left this morning," said Valancy. "I suppose he hasn't come home yet."

She spoke きっぱりと and tonelessly. This last shock had 一時的に bereft her of whatever little 力／強力にする of 推論する／理由ing had been left her by Dr. Trent's 発覚. In the 支援する of her mind the aforesaid little imp was jeeringly repeating a silly old proverb, "It never rains but it 注ぐs." But she was not trying to think. What was the use?

Dr. Redfern was gazing at her in perplexity.

"When you left this morning? Do you live—over there?"

He waved his diamond at the Blue 城.

"Of course," said Valancy stupidly. "I'm his wife."

Dr. Redfern took out a yellow silk handkerchief, 除去するd his hat and mopped his brow. He was very bald, and Valancy's imp whispered, "Why be bald? Why lose your manly beauty? Try Redfern's Hair Vigor. It keeps you young."

"Excuse me," said Dr. Redfern. "This is a bit of a shock."

"Shocks seem to be in the 空気／公表する this morning." The imp said this out loud before Valancy could 妨げる it.

"I didn't know Bernie was—married. I didn't think he would have got married without telling his old dad."

Were Dr. Redfern's 注目する，もくろむs misty? まっただ中に her own dull ache of 悲惨 and 恐れる and dread, Valancy felt a pang of pity for him.

"Don't 非難する him," she said hurriedly. "It—it wasn't his fault. It—was all my doing."

"You didn't ask him to marry you, I suppose," twinkled Dr. Redfern. "He might have let me know. I'd have got 熟知させるd with my daughter-in-法律 before this if he had. But I'm glad to 会合，会う you now, my dear—very glad. You look like a sensible young woman. I used to sorter 恐れる Barney'd 選ぶ out some pretty bit of fluff just because she was good-looking. They were all after him, of course. 手配中の，お尋ね者 his money? Eh? Didn't like the pills and the bitters but liked the dollars. Eh? 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 下落する their pretty little fingers in old Doc's millions. Eh?"

"Millions!" said Valancy faintly. She wished she could sit 負かす／撃墜する somewhere—she wished she could have a chance to think—she wished she and the Blue 城 could 沈む to the 底（に届く） of Mistawis and 消える from human sight forevermore.

"Millions," said Dr. Redfern complacently. "And Bernie chucks them for—that." Again he shook the diamond contemptuously at the Blue 城, "Wouldn't you think he'd have more sense? And all on account of a white bit of a girl. He must have got over that feeling, anyhow, since he's married. You must 説得する him to come 支援する to civilisation. All nonsense wasting his life like this. Ain't you going to take me over to your house, my dear? I suppose you've some way of getting there."

"Of course," said Valancy stupidly. She led the way 負かす／撃墜する to the little cove where the disappearing プロペラ boat was snuggled.

"Does your—your man want to come, too?"

"Who? Henry. Not he. Look at him sitting there disapproving. Disapproves of the whole 探検隊／遠征隊. The 追跡する up from the road nearly gave him a conniption. 井戸／弁護士席, it was a devilish road to put a car on. Whose old bus is that up there?"

"Barney's."

"Good Lord! Does Bernie Redfern ride in a thing like that? It looks like the 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-grandmother of all the Fords."

"It isn't a Ford. It's a Grey Slosson," said Valancy spiritedly. For some occult 推論する／理由, Dr. Redfern's good-humoured ridicule of dear old Lady Jane stung her to life. A life that was all 苦痛 but still life. Better than the horrible half-dead-and-half-aliveness of the past few minutes—or years. She waved Dr. Redfern curtly into the boat and took him over to the Blue 城. The 重要な was still in the old pine—the house still silent and 砂漠d. Valancy took the doctor through the living-room to the western verandah. She must at least be out where there was 空気／公表する. It was still sunny, but in the 南西 a 広大な／多数の／重要な thundercloud, with white crests and gorges of purple 影をつくる／尾行する, was slowly rising over Mistawis. The doctor dropped with a gasp on a rustic 議長，司会を務める and mopped his brow again.

"Warm, eh? Lord, what a 見解（をとる）! Wonder if it would 軟化する Henry if he could see it."

"Have you had dinner?" asked Valancy.

"Yes, my dear—had it before we left Port Lawrence. Didn't know what sort of wild hermit's hollow we were coming to, you see. Hadn't any idea I was going to find a nice little daughter-in-法律 here all ready to 投げ上げる／ボディチェックする me up a meal. Cats, eh? Puss, puss! See that. Cats love me. Bernie was always fond of cats! It's about the only thing he took from me. He's his poor mother's boy."

Valancy had been thinking idly that Barney must 似ている his mother. She had remained standing by the steps, but Dr. Redfern waved her to the swing seat.

"Sit 負かす／撃墜する, dear. Never stand when you can sit. I want to get a good look at Barney's wife. 井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, I like your 直面する. No beauty—you don't mind my 説 that—you've sense enough to know it, I reckon. Sit 負かす／撃墜する."

Valancy sat 負かす／撃墜する. To be 強いるd to sit still when mental agony 勧めるs us to stride up and 負かす／撃墜する is the refinement of 拷問. Every 神経 in her 存在 was crying out to be alone—to be hidden. But she had to sit and listen to Dr. Redfern, who didn't mind talking at all.

"When do you think Bernie will be 支援する?"

"I don't know—not before night probably."

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know that either. Likely to the 支持を得ようと努めるd—up 支援する."

"So he doesn't tell you his comings and goings, either? Bernie was always a 隠しだてする young devil. Never understood him. Just like his poor mother. But I thought a lot of him. It 傷つけるs me when he disappeared as he did. Eleven years ago. I 港／避難所't seen my boy for eleven years."

"Eleven years." Valancy was surprised. "It's only six since he （機の）カム here."

"Oh, he was in the Klondike before that—and all over the world. He used to 減少（する） me a line now and then—never give any 手がかり（を与える） to where he was but just a line to say he was all 権利. I s'提起する／ポーズをとる he's told you all about it."

"No. I know nothing of his past life," said Valancy with sudden 切望. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know—she must know now. It hadn't 事柄d before. Now she must know all. And she could never hear it from Barney. She might never even see him again. If she did, it would not be to talk of his past.

"What happened? Why did he leave his home? Tell me. Tell me."

"井戸／弁護士席, it ain't much of a story. Just a young fool gone mad because of a quarrel with his girl. Only Bernie was a stubborn fool. Always stubborn. You never could make that boy do anything he didn't want to do. From the day he was born. Yet he was always a 静かな, gentle little chap, too. Good as gold. His poor mother died when he was only two years old. I'd just begun to make money with my Hair Vigor. I'd dreamed the 決まり文句／製法 for it, you see. Some dream that. The cash rolled in. Bernie had everything he 手配中の，お尋ね者. I sent him to the best schools—私的な schools. I meant to make a gentleman of him. Never had any chance myself. Meant he should have every chance. He went through McGill. Got honours and all that. I 手配中の，お尋ね者 him to go in for 法律. He hankered after journalism and stuff like that. 手配中の，お尋ね者 me to buy a paper for him—or 支援する him in publishing what he called a 'real, worthwhile, honest-to-goodness Canadian Magazine.' I s'提起する／ポーズをとる I'd have done it—I always did what he 手配中の，お尋ね者 me to do. Wasn't he all I had to live for? I 手配中の，お尋ね者 him to be happy. And he never was happy. Can you believe it? Not that he said so. But I'd always a feeling that he wasn't happy. Everything he 手配中の，お尋ね者—all the money he could spend—his own bank account—travel—seeing the world—but he wasn't happy. Not till he fell in love with Ethel 横断する. Then he was happy for a little while."

The cloud had reached the sun and a 広大な／多数の／重要な, 冷気／寒がらせる, purple 影をつくる／尾行する （機の）カム 速く over Mistawis. It touched the Blue 城—rolled over it. Valancy shivered.

"Yes," she said, with painful 切望, though every word was cutting her to the heart. "What—was—she—like?"

"Prettiest girl in Montreal," said Dr. Redfern. "Oh, she was a looker, all 権利. Eh? Gold hair—shiny as silk—広大な／多数の／重要な, big, soft, 黒人／ボイコット 注目する，もくろむs—肌 like milk and roses. Don't wonder Bernie fell for her. And brains 同様に. She wasn't a bit of fluff. B.A. from McGill. A thoroughbred, too. One of the best families. But a bit lean in the purse. Eh! Bernie was mad about her. Happiest young fool you ever saw. Then—the 破産した／（警察が）手入れする-up."

"What happened?" Valancy had taken off her hat and was absently thrusting a pin in and out of it. Good Luck was purring beside her. Banjo was regarding Dr. Redfern with 疑惑. 阻止する and Tuck were lazily cawing in the pines. Mistawis was beckoning. Everything was the same. Nothing was the same. It was a hundred years since yesterday. Yesterday, at this time, she and Barney had been eating a belated dinner here with laughter. Laughter? Valancy felt that she had done with laughter forever. And with 涙／ほころびs, for that 事柄. She had no その上の use for either of them.

"Blest if I know, my dear. Some fool quarrel, I suppose. Bernie just lit out—disappeared. He wrote me from the Yukon. Said his 約束／交戦 was broken and he wasn't coming 支援する. And not to try to 追跡（する） him up because he was never coming 支援する. I didn't. What was the use? I knew Bernie. I went on piling up money because there wasn't anything else to do. But I was mighty lonely. All I lived for was them little 公式文書，認めるs now and then from Bernie—Klondike—England—South Africa—中国—everywhere. I thought maybe he'd come 支援する some day to his lonesome old dad. Then six years ago even the letters stopped. I didn't hear a word of or from him till last Christmas."

"Did he 令状?"

"No. But he drew a check for fifteen thousand dollars on his bank account. The bank 経営者／支配人 is a friend of 地雷—one of my biggest 株主s. He'd always 約束d me he'd let me know if Bernie drew any checks. Bernie had fifty thousand there. And he'd never touched a cent of it till last Christmas. The check was made out to Aynsley's, Toronto—"

"Anysley's?" Valancy heard herself 説 Aynsley's! She had a box on her dressing-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with the Aynsley trademark.

"Yes. The big jewellery house there. After I'd thought it over a while, I got きびきびした. I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 位置を示す Bernie. Had a special 推論する／理由 for it. It was time he gave up his fool hoboing and come to his senses. 製図／抽選 that fifteen told me there was something in the 勝利，勝つd. The 経営者／支配人 communicated with the Aynsleys—his wife was an Aynsley—and 設立する out that Bernard Redfern had bought a pearl necklace there. His 演説（する）／住所 was given as Box 444, Port Lawrence, Muskoka, Ont. First I thought I'd 令状. Then I thought I'd wait till the open season for cars and come 負かす／撃墜する myself. Ain't no 手渡す at 令状ing. I've モーターd from Montreal. Got to Port Lawrence yesterday. Enquired at the 地位，任命する-office. Told me they knew nothing of any Bernard Snaith Redfern, but there was a Barney Snaith had a P. O. box there. Lived on an island out here, they said. So here I am. And where's Barney?"

Valancy was fingering her necklace. She was wearing fifteen thousand dollars around her neck. And she had worried lest Barney had paid fifteen dollars for it and couldn't afford it. Suddenly she laughed in Dr. Redfern's 直面する.

"Excuse me. It's so—amusing," said poor Valancy.

"Isn't it?" said Dr. Redfern, seeing a joke—but not 正確に／まさに hers. "Now, you seem like a sensible young woman, and I dare say you've lots of 影響（力） over Bernie. Can't you get him to come 支援する to civilisation and live like other people? I've a house up there. Big as a 城. Furnished like a palace. I want company in it—Bernie's wife—Bernie's children."

"Did Ethel 横断する ever marry?" queried Valancy irrelevantly.

"Bless you, yes. Two years after Bernie levanted. But she's a 未亡人 now. Pretty as ever. To be frank, that was my special 推論する／理由 for wanting to find Bernie. I thought they'd make it up, maybe. But, of course, that's all off now. Doesn't 事柄. Bernie's choice of a wife is good enough for me. It's my boy I want. Think he'll soon be 支援する?"

"I don't know. But I don't think he'll come before night. やめる late, perhaps. And perhaps not till tomorrow. But I can put you up comfortably. He'll certainly be 支援する tomorrow."

Dr. Redfern shook his 長，率いる.

"Too damp. I'll take no chances with rheumatism."

"Why 苦しむ that ceaseless anguish? Why not try Redfern's Liniment?" 引用するd the imp in the 支援する of Valancy's mind.

"I must get 支援する to Port Lawrence before rain starts. Henry goes やめる mad when he gets mud on the car. But I'll come 支援する tomorrow. 一方／合間 you talk Bernie into 推論する／理由."

He shook her 手渡す and patted her kindly on the shoulder. He looked as if he would have kissed her, with a little 激励, but Valancy did not give it. Not that she would have minded. He was rather dreadful and loud—and—and—dreadful. But there was something about him she liked. She thought dully that she might have liked 存在 his daughter-in-法律 if he had not been a millionaire. A 得点する／非難する／２０ of times over. And Barney was his son—and 相続人.

She took him over in the モーター boat and watched the lordly purple car roll away through the 支持を得ようと努めるd with Henry at the wheel looking things not lawful to be uttered. Then she went 支援する to the Blue 城. What she had to do must be done quickly. Barney might return at any moment. And it was certainly going to rain. She was thankful she no longer felt very bad. When you are bludgeoned on the 長，率いる 繰り返して, you 自然に and mercifully become more or いっそう少なく insensible and stupid.

She stood 簡潔に like a faded flower bitten by 霜, by the hearth, looking 負かす／撃墜する on the white ashes of the last 解雇する／砲火／射撃 that had 炎d in the Blue 城.

"At any 率," she thought wearily, "Barney isn't poor. He will be able to afford a 離婚. やめる nicely."

CHAPTER XXXIX

She must 令状 a 公式文書，認める. The imp in the 支援する of her mind laughed. In every story she had ever read when a runaway wife decamped from home she left a 公式文書，認める, 一般に on the pin-cushion. It was not a very 初めの idea. But one had to leave something intelligible. What was there to do but 令状 a 公式文書，認める? She looked ばく然と about her for something to 令状 with. 署名／調印する? There was 非，不，無. Valancy had never written anything since she had come to the Blue 城, save 覚え書き of 世帯 necessaries for Barney. A pencil 十分であるd for them, but now the pencil was not to be 設立する. Valancy absently crossed to the door of Bluebeard's 議会 and tried it. She ばく然と 推定する／予想するd to find it locked, but it opened unresistingly. She had never tried it before, and did not know whether Barney habitually kept it locked or not. If he did, he must have been 不正に upset to leave it 打ち明けるd. She did not realise that she was doing something he had told her not to do. She was only looking for something to 令状 with. All her faculties were concentrated on deciding just what she would say and how she would say it. There was not the slightest curiosity in her as she went into the lean-to.

There were no beautiful women hanging by their hair on the 塀で囲むs. It seemed a very 害のない apartment, with a commonplace little sheet-アイロンをかける stove in the middle of it, its 麻薬を吸う sticking out through the roof. At one end was a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する or 反対する （人が）群がるd with 半端物-looking utensils. Used no 疑問 by Barney in his smelly 操作／手術s. 化学製品 実験s, probably, she 反映するd dully. At the other end was a big 令状ing desk and swivel-議長，司会を務める. The 味方する 塀で囲むs were lined with 調書をとる／予約するs.

Valancy went blindly to the desk. There she stood motionless for a few minutes, looking 負かす／撃墜する at something that lay on it. A bundle of galleyproofs. The page on 最高の，を越す bore the 肩書を与える Wild Honey, and under the 肩書を与える were the words "by John Foster."

The 開始 宣告，判決—"Pines are the trees of myth and legend. They strike their roots 深い into the traditions of an older world, but 勝利，勝つd and 星／主役にする love their lofty 最高の，を越すs. What music when old Æolus draws his 屈服する across the 支店s of the pines—" She had heard Barney say that one day when they walked under them.

So Barney was John Foster!

Valancy was not excited. She had 吸収するd all the shocks and sensations that she could compass for one day. This 影響する／感情d her neither one way nor the other. She only thought:

"So this explains it."

"It" was a small 事柄 that had, somehow, stuck in her mind more 断固としてやる than its importance seemed to 正当化する. Soon after Barney had brought her John Foster's 最新の 調書をとる／予約する she had been in a Port Lawrence bookshop and heard a 顧客 ask the proprietor for John Foster's new 調書をとる／予約する. The proprietor had said curtly, "Not out yet. Won't be out till next week."

Valancy had opened her lips to say, "Oh, yes, it is out," but の近くにd them again. After all, it was 非，不，無 of her 商売／仕事. She supposed the proprietor 手配中の，お尋ね者 to cover up his 怠慢，過失 in not getting the 調書をとる／予約する in 敏速に. Now she knew. The 調書をとる／予約する Barney had given her had been one of the author's complimentary copies, sent in 前進する.

井戸／弁護士席! Valancy 押し進めるd the proofs indifferently aside and sat 負かす／撃墜する in the swivel-議長，司会を務める. She took up Barney's pen—and a vile one it was—pulled a sheet of paper to her and began to 令状. She could not think of anything to say except bald facts.

"Dear Barney:—

I went to Dr. Trent this morning and 設立する out he had sent me the wrong letter by mistake. There never was anything serious the 事柄 with my heart and I am やめる 井戸／弁護士席 now.

I did not mean to trick you. Please believe that. I could not 耐える it if you did not believe that. I am very sorry for the mistake. But surely you can get a 離婚 if I leave you. Is desertion a ground for 離婚 in Canada? Of course if there is anything I can do to help or 急いで it I will do it 喜んで, if your lawyer will let me know.

I thank you for all your 親切 to me. I shall never forget it. Think as kindly of me as you can, because I did not mean to 罠（にかける） you. Good-bye.

Yours gratefully,

Valancy."

It was very 冷淡な and stiff, she knew. But to try to say anything else would be dangerous—like 涙／ほころびing away a dam. She didn't know what 激流 of wild incoherences and 熱烈な anguish might 注ぐ out. In a postscript she 追加するd:

"Your father was here today. He is coming 支援する tomorrow. He told me everything. I think you should go 支援する to him. He is very lonely for you."

She put the letter in an envelope, wrote "Barney" across it, and left it on the desk. On it she laid the string of pearls. If they had been the beads she believed them she would have kept them in memory of that wonderful year. But she could not keep the fifteen thousand dollar gift of a man who had married her of pity and whom she was now leaving. It 傷つける her to give up her pretty bauble. That was an 半端物 thing, she 反映するd. The fact that she was leaving Barney did not 傷つける her—yet. It lay at her heart like a 冷淡な, insensible thing. If it （機の）カム to life—Valancy shuddered and went out—

She put on her hat and mechanically fed Good Luck and Banjo. She locked the door and carefully hid the 重要な in the old pine. Then she crossed to the 本土／大陸 in the disappearing プロペラ. She stood for a moment on the bank, looking at her Blue 城. The rain had not yet come, but the sky was dark, and Mistawis grey and sullen. The little house under the pines looked very pathetic—a casket ライフル銃／探して盗むd of its jewels—a lamp with its 炎上 blown out.

"I shall never again hear the 勝利，勝つd crying over Mistawis at night," thought Valancy. This 傷つける her, too. She could have laughed to think that such a trifle could 傷つける her at such a time.

CHAPTER XL

Valancy paused a moment on the porch of the brick house in Elm Street. She felt that she せねばならない knock like a stranger. Her rosebush, she idly noticed, was 負担d with buds. The rubber-工場／植物 stood beside the prim door. A momentary horror overcame her—a horror of the 存在 to which she was returning. Then she opened the door and walked in.

"I wonder if the Prodigal Son ever felt really at home again," she thought.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles were in the sitting-room. Uncle Benjamin was there, too. They looked blankly at Valancy, realising at once that something was wrong. This was not the saucy, impudent thing who had laughed at them in this very room last summer. This was a grey-直面するd woman with the 注目する，もくろむs of a creature who had been stricken by a mortal blow.

Valancy looked indifferently around the room. She had changed so much—and it had changed so little. The same pictures hung on the 塀で囲むs. The little 孤児 who knelt at her never-finished 祈り by the bed whereon reposed the 黒人／ボイコット kitten that never grew up into cat. The grey "steel engraving" of Quatre Bras, where the British 連隊 forever stood at bay. The crayon enlargement of the boyish father she had never known. There they all hung in the same places. The green cascade of "Wandering Jew" still 宙返り／暴落するd out of the old granite saucepan on the windowstand. The same (a)手の込んだ／(v)詳述する, never-used 投手 stood at the same angle on the sideboard shelf. The blue and gilt vases that had been の中で her mother's wedding-現在のs still primly adorned the mantelpiece, 側面に位置するing the 磁器 clock of berosed and besprayed ware that never went. The 議長，司会を務めるs in 正確に／まさに the same places. Her mother and Cousin Stickles, likewise 不変の, regarding her with stony unwelcome.

Valancy had to speak first.

"I've come home, Mother," she said tiredly.

"So I see." Mrs. Frederick's 発言する／表明する was very icy. She had 辞職するd herself to Valancy's desertion. She had almost 後継するd in forgetting there was a Valancy. She had 配列し直すd and organised her systematic life without any 言及／関連 to an ungrateful, 反抗的な child. She had taken her place again in a society which ignored the fact that she had ever had a daughter and pitied her, if it pitied her at all, only in 控えめの whispers and asides. The plain truth was that, by this time, Mrs. Frederick did not want Valancy to come 支援する—did not want ever to see or hear of her again.

And now, of course, Valancy was here. With 悲劇 and 不名誉 and スキャンダル 追跡するing after her visibly.

"So I see," said Mrs. Frederick. "May I ask why?"

"Because—I'm—not—going to die," said Valancy huskily.

"God bless my soul!" said Uncle Benjamin. "Who said you were going to die?"

"I suppose," said Cousin Stickles shrewishly—Cousin Stickles did not want Valancy 支援する either—"I suppose you've 設立する out he has another wife—as we've been sure all along."

"No. I only wish he had," said Valancy. She was not 苦しむing 特に, but she was very tired. If only the explanations were all over and she were upstairs in her old, ugly room—alone. Just alone! The 動揺させる of the beads on her mother's sleeves, as they swung on the 武器 of the reed 議長，司会を務める, almost drove her crazy. Nothing else was worrying her; but all at once it seemed that she 簡単に could not 耐える that thin, insistent 動揺させる.

"My home, as I told you, is always open to you," said Mrs. Frederick stonily, "but I can never 許す you."

Valancy gave a mirthless laugh.

"I'd care very little for that if I could only 許す myself," she said.

"Come, come," said Uncle Benjamin testily. But rather enjoying himself. He felt he had Valancy under his thumb again. "We've had enough of mystery. What has happened? Why have you left that fellow? No 疑問 there's 推論する／理由 enough—but what particular 推論する／理由 is it?"

Valancy began to speak mechanically. She told her tale bluntly and barely.

"A year ago Dr. Trent told me I had angina pectoris and could not live long. I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to have some—life—before I died. That's why I went away. Why I married Barney. And now I've 設立する it is all a mistake. There is nothing wrong with my heart. I've got to live—and Barney only married me out of pity. So I have to leave him—解放する／自由な."

"God bless me!" said Uncle Benjamin. Cousin Stickles began to cry.

"Valancy, if you'd only had 信用／信任 in your own mother—"

"Yes, yes, I know," said Valancy impatiently, "What's the use of going into that now? I can't undo this year. God knows I wish I could. I've tricked Barney into marrying me—and he's really Bernard Redfern. Dr. Redfern's son, of Montreal. And his father wants him to go 支援する to him."

Uncle Benjamin made a queer sound. Cousin Stickles took her 黒人／ボイコット-国境d handkerchief away from her 注目する，もくろむs and 星／主役にするd at Valancy. A queer gleam suddenly 発射 into Mrs. Frederick's 石／投石する-grey orbs.

"Dr. Redfern—not the Purple Pill man?" she said.

Valancy nodded. "He's John Foster, too—the writer of those nature 調書をとる／予約するs."

"But—but—" Mrs. Frederick was visibly agitated, though not over the thought that she was the mother-in-法律 of John Foster—"Dr. Redfern is a millionaire!"

Uncle Benjamin shut his mouth with a snap.

"Ten times over," he said.

Valancy nodded.

"Yes. Barney left home years ago—because of—of some trouble—some—失望. Now he will likely go 支援する. So you see—I had to come home. He doesn't love me. I can't 持つ／拘留する him to a 社債 he was tricked into."

Uncle Benjamin looked incredibly sly.

"Did he say so? Does he want to get rid of you?"

"No. I 港／避難所't seen him since I 設立する out. But I tell you—he only married me out of pity—because I asked him to—because he thought it would only be for a little while."

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles both tried to speak, but Uncle Benjamin waved a 手渡す at them and frowned portentously.

"Let me 扱う this," wave and wave and frown seemed to say. To Valancy:

"井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, dear, we'll talk it over later. You see, we don't やめる understand everything yet. As Cousin Stickles says, you should have confided in us before. Later on—I dare say we can find a way out of this."

"You think Barney can easily get a 離婚, don't you?" said Valancy 熱望して.

Uncle Benjamin silenced with another wave the exclamation of horror he knew was trembling on Mrs. Frederick's lips.

"信用 to me, Valancy. Everything will arrange itself. Tell me this, Dossie. Have you been happy up 支援する? Was Sn—Mr. Redfern good to you?"

"I have been very happy and Barney was very good to me," said Valancy, as if reciting a lesson. She remembered when she 熟考する／考慮するd grammar at school she had disliked the past and perfect 緊張したs. They had always seemed so pathetic. "I have been"—it was all over and done with.

"Then don't worry, little girl." How amazingly paternal Uncle Benjamin was! "Your family will stand behind you. We'll see what can be done."

"Thank you," said Valancy dully. Really, it was やめる decent of Uncle Benjamin. "Can I go and 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する a little while? I'm—I'm—tired."

"Of course you're tired." Uncle Benjamin patted her 手渡す gently—very gently. "All worn out and nervous. Go and 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する, by all means. You'll see things in やめる a different light after you've had a good sleep."

He held the door open. As she went through he whispered, "What is the best way to keep a man's love?"

Valancy smiled wanly. But she had come 支援する to the old life—the old shackles. "What?" she asked as meekly as of yore.

"Not to return it," said Uncle Benjamin with a chuckle. He shut the door and rubbed his 手渡すs. Nodded and smiled mysteriously 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the room.

"Poor little Doss!" he said pathetically.

"Do you really suppose that—Snaith—can 現実に be Dr. Redfern's son?" gasped Mrs. Frederick.

"I see no 推論する／理由 for 疑問ing it. She says Dr. Redfern has been there. Why, the man is rich as wedding-cake. Amelia, I've always believed there was more in Doss than most people thought. You kept her 負かす／撃墜する too much—repressed her. She never had a chance to show what was in her. And now she's landed a millionaire for a husband."

"But—" hesitated Mrs. Frederick, "he—he—they told terrible tales about him."

"All gossip and 発明—all gossip and 発明. It's always been a mystery to me why people should be so ready to invent and 循環させる 名誉き損，中傷s about other people they know 絶対 nothing about. I can't understand why you paid so much attention to gossip and surmise. Just because he didn't choose to mix up with everybody, people resented it. I was surprised to find what a decent fellow he seemed to be that time he （機の）カム into my 蓄える／店 with Valancy. I 割引d all the yarns then and there."

"But he was seen dead drunk in Port Lawrence once," said Cousin Stickles. Doubtfully, yet as one very willing to be 納得させるd to the contrary.

"Who saw him?" 需要・要求するd Uncle Benjamin truculently. "Who saw him? Old Jemmy Strang said he saw him. I wouldn't take old Jemmy Strang's word on 誓い. He's too drunk himself half the time to see straight. He said he saw him lying drunk on a （法廷の）裁判 in the Park. Pshaw! Redfern's been asleep there. Don't worry over that."

"But his 着せる／賦与するs—and that awful old car—" said Mrs. Frederick uncertainly.

"Eccentricities of genius," 宣言するd Uncle Benjamin. "You heard Doss say he was John Foster. I'm not up in literature myself, but I heard a lecturer from Toronto say that John Foster's 調書をとる／予約するs had put Canada on the literary 地図／計画する of the world."

"I—suppose—we must 許す her," 産する／生じるd Mrs. Frederick.

"許す her!" Uncle Benjamin snorted. Really, Amelia was an incredibly stupid woman. No wonder poor Doss had gone sick and tired of living with her. "井戸／弁護士席, yes, I think you'd better 許す her! The question is—will Snaith 許す us!"

"What if she 固執するs in leaving him? You've no idea how stubborn she can be," said Mrs. Frederick.

"Leave it all to me, Amelia. Leave it all to me. You women have muddled it enough. This whole 事件／事情／状勢 has been bungled from start to finish. If you had put yourself to a little trouble years ago, Amelia, she would not have bolted over the traces as she did. Just let her alone—don't worry her with advice or questions till she's ready to talk. She's evidently run away in a panic because she's afraid he'd be angry with her for fooling him. Most 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の thing of Trent to tell her such a yarn! That's what comes of going to strange doctors. 井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, we mustn't 非難する her too 厳しく, poor child. Redfern will come after her. If he doesn't, I'll 追跡（する） him up and talk to him as man to man. He may be a millionaire, but Valancy is a Stirling. He can't repudiate her just because she was mistaken about her heart 病気. Not likely he'll want to. Doss is a little overstrung. Bless me, I must get in the habit of calling her Valancy. She isn't a baby any longer. Now, remember, Amelia. Be very 肉親，親類d and 同情的な."

It was something of a large order to 推定する／予想する Mrs. Frederick to be 肉親，親類d and 同情的な. But she did her best. When supper was ready she went up and asked Valancy if she wouldn't like a cup of tea. Valancy, lying on her bed, 拒絶する／低下するd. She just 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be left alone for a while. Mrs. Frederick left her alone. She did not even remind Valancy that her 苦境 was the 結果 of her own 欠如（する） of daughterly 尊敬（する）・点 and obedience. One could not—正確に／まさに—say things like that to the daughter-in-法律 of a millionaire.

CHAPTER XLI

Valancy looked dully about her old room. It, too, was so 正確に／まさに the same that it seemed almost impossible to believe in the changes that had come to her since she had last slept in it. It seemed—somehow—indecent that it should be so much the same. There was Queen Louise everlastingly coming 負かす／撃墜する the stairway, and nobody had let the forlorn puppy in out of the rain. Here was the purple paper blind and the greenish mirror. Outside, the old carriage-shop with its 露骨な／あからさまの 宣伝s. Beyond it, the 駅／配置する with the same derelicts and flirtatious flappers.

Here the old life waited for her, like some grim ogre that 企て，努力，提案d his time and licked his chops. A monstrous horror of it suddenly 所有するd her. When night fell and she had undressed and got into bed, the 慈悲の numbness passed away and she lay in anguish and thought of her island under the 星／主役にするs. The （軍の）野営地，陣営-解雇する／砲火／射撃s—all their little 世帯 jokes and phrases and catch words—their furry beautiful cats—the lights agleam on the fairy islands—canoes skimming over Mistawis in the 魔法 of morning—white birches 向こうずねing の中で the dark spruces like beautiful women's 団体／死体s—winter snows and rose-red sunset 解雇する／砲火／射撃s—lakes drunken with moonshine—all the delights of her lost 楽園. She would not let herself think of Barney. Only of these lesser things. She could not 耐える to think of Barney.

Then she thought of him inescapably. She ached for him. She 手配中の，お尋ね者 his 武器 around her—his 直面する against hers—his whispers in her ear. She 解任するd all his friendly looks and quips and jests—his little compliments—his caresses. She counted them all over as a woman might count her jewels—not one did she 行方不明になる from the first day they had met. These memories were all she could have now. She shut her 注目する，もくろむs and prayed.

"Let me remember every one, God! Let me never forget one of them!"

Yet it would be better to forget. This agony of longing and loneliness would not be so terrible if one could forget. And Ethel 横断する. That shimmering witch woman with her white 肌 and 黒人／ボイコット 注目する，もくろむs and 向こうずねing hair. The woman Barney had loved. The woman whom he still loved. Hadn't he told her he never changed his mind? Who was waiting for him in Montreal. Who was the 権利 wife for a rich and famous man. Barney would marry her, of course, when he got his 離婚. How Valancy hated her! And envied her! Barney had said, "I love you," to her. Valancy had wondered what トン Barney would say "I love you" in—how his dark-blue 注目する，もくろむs would look when he said it. Ethel 横断する knew. Valancy hated her for the knowledge—hated and envied her.

"She can never have those hours in the Blue 城. They are 地雷," thought Valancy savagely. Ethel would never make strawberry jam or dance to old Abel's fiddle or fry bacon for Barney over a （軍の）野営地，陣営-解雇する／砲火／射撃. She would never come to the little Mistawis shack at all.

What was Barney doing—thinking—feeling now? Had he come home and 設立する her letter? Was he still angry with her? Or a little pitiful. Was he lying on their bed looking out on 嵐の Mistawis and listening to the rain streaming 負かす／撃墜する on the roof? Or was he still wandering in the wilderness, 激怒（する）ing at the predicament in which he 設立する himself? Hating her? 苦痛 took her and wrung her like some 広大な／多数の／重要な pitiless 巨大（な）. She got up and walked the 床に打ち倒す. Would morning never come to end this hideous night? And yet what could morning bring her? The old life without the old stagnation that was at least bearable. The old life with the new memories, the new longings, the new anguish.

"Oh, why can't I die?" moaned Valancy.

CHAPTER XLII

It was not until 早期に afternoon the next day that a dreadful old car clanked up Elm Street and stopped in 前線 of the brick house. A hatless man sprang from it and 急ぐd up the steps. The bell was rung as it had never been rung before—熱心に, intensely. The ringer was 需要・要求するing 入り口, not asking it. Uncle Benjamin chuckled as he hurried to the door. Uncle Benjamin had "just dropped in" to enquire how dear Doss—Valancy was. Dear Doss—Valancy, he had been 知らせるd, was the same. She had come 負かす／撃墜する for breakfast—which she didn't eat—gone 支援する to her room, come 負かす／撃墜する for dinner—which she didn't eat—gone 支援する to her room. That was all. She had not talked. And she had been let, kindly, considerately, alone.

"Very good. Redfern will be here today," said Uncle Benjamin. And now Uncle Benjamin's 評判 as a prophet was made. Redfern was here—unmistakably so.

"Is my wife here?" he 需要・要求するd of Uncle Benjamin without preface.

Uncle Benjamin smiled expressively.

"Mr. Redfern, I believe? Very glad to 会合，会う you, sir. Yes, that naughty little girl of yours is here. We have been—"

"I must see her," Barney 削減（する） Uncle Benjamin ruthlessly short.

"Certainly, Mr. Redfern. Just step in here. Valancy will be 負かす／撃墜する in a minute."

He 勧めるd Barney into the parlour and betook himself to the sitting-room and Mrs. Frederick.

"Go up and tell Valancy to come 負かす／撃墜する. Her husband is here."

But so 疑わしい was Uncle Benjamin as to whether Valancy could really come 負かす／撃墜する in a minute—or at all—that he followed Mrs. Frederick on tiptoe up the stairs and listened in the hall.

"Valancy dear," said Mrs. Frederick tenderly, "your husband is in the parlour, asking for you."

"Oh Mother." Valancy got up from the window and wrung her 手渡すs. "I cannot see him—I cannot! Tell him to go away—ask him to go away. I can't see him!"

"Tell her," hissed Uncle Benjamin through the keyhole, "that Redfern says he won't go away until he has seen her."

Redfern had not said anything of the 肉親，親類d, but Uncle Benjamin thought he was that sort of a fellow. Valancy knew he was. She understood that she might 同様に go 負かす／撃墜する first as last.

She did not even look at Uncle Benjamin as she passed him on the 上陸. Uncle Benjamin did not mind. Rubbing his 手渡すs and chuckling, he 退却／保養地d to the kitchen, where he genially 需要・要求するd of Cousin Stickles:

"Why are good husbands like bread?"

Cousin Stickles asked why.

"Because women need them," beamed Uncle Benjamin.

Valancy was looking anything but beautiful when she entered the parlour. Her white night had played fearful havoc with her 直面する. She wore an ugly old brown-and-blue gingham, having left all her pretty dresses in the Blue 城. But Barney dashed across the room and caught her in his 武器.

"Valancy, darling—oh, you darling little idiot! Whatever 所有するd you to run away like that? When I （機の）カム home last night and 設立する your letter I went やめる mad. It was twelve o'clock—I knew it was too late to come here then. I walked the 床に打ち倒す all night. Then this morning Dad （機の）カム—I couldn't get away till now. Valancy, whatever got into you? 離婚, forsooth! Don't you know—"

"I know you only married me out of pity," said Valancy, 小衝突ing him away feebly. "I know you don't love me—I know—"

"You've been lying awake at three o'clock too long," said Barney, shaking her. "That's all that's the 事柄 with you. Love you! Oh, don't I love you! My girl, when I saw that train coming 負かす／撃墜する on you I knew whether I loved you or not!"

"Oh, I was afraid you would try to make me think you cared," cried Valancy passionately. "Don't—don't! I know all about Ethel 横断する—your father told me everything. Oh, Barney, don't 拷問 me! I can never go 支援する to you!"

Barney 解放（する）d her and looked at her for a moment. Something in her pallid, resolute 直面する spoke more convincingly than words of her 決意.

"Valancy," he said 静かに, "Father couldn't have told you everything because he didn't know it. Will you let me tell you—everything?"

"Yes," said Valancy wearily. Oh, how dear he was! How she longed to throw herself into his 武器! As he put her gently 負かす／撃墜する in a 議長，司会を務める, she could have kissed the slender, brown 手渡すs that touched her 武器. She could not look up as he stood before her. She dared not 会合，会う his 注目する，もくろむs. For his sake, she must be 勇敢に立ち向かう. She knew him—肉親，親類d, unselfish. Of course he would pretend he did not want his freedom—she might have known he would pretend that, once the first shock of realisation was over. He was so sorry for her—he understood her terrible position. When had he ever failed to understand? But she would never 受託する his sacrifice. Never!

"You've seen Dad and you know I'm Bernard Redfern. And I suppose you've guessed that I'm John Foster—since you went into Bluebeard's 議会."

"Yes. But I didn't go in out of curiosity. I forgot you had told me not to go in—I forgot—"

"Never mind. I'm not going to kill you and hang you up on the 塀で囲む, so there's no need to call for Sister Anne. I'm only going to tell you my story from the beginning. I （機の）カム 支援する last night ーするつもりであるing to do it. Yes, I'm 'old Doc. Redfern's son'—of Purple Pills and Bitters fame. Oh, don't I know it? Wasn't it rubbed into me for years?"

Barney laughed 激しく and strode up and 負かす／撃墜する the room a few times. Uncle Benjamin, tiptoeing through the hall, heard the laugh and frowned. Surely Doss wasn't going to be a stubborn little fool. Barney threw himself into a 議長，司会を務める before Valancy.

"Yes. As long as I can remember I've been a millionaire's son. But when I was born Dad wasn't a millionaire. He wasn't even a doctor—isn't yet. He was a veterinary and a 失敗 at it. He and Mother lived in a little village up in Quebec and were abominably poor. I don't remember Mother. 港／避難所't even a picture of her. She died when I was two years old. She was fifteen years younger than Father—a little school teacher. When she died Dad moved into Montreal and formed a company to sell his hair tonic. He'd dreamed the prescription one night, it seems. 井戸／弁護士席, it caught on. Money began to flow in. Dad invented—or dreamed—the other things, too—Pills, Bitters, Liniment and so on. He was a millionaire by the time I was ten, with a house so big a small chap like myself always felt lost in it. I had every toy a boy could wish for—and I was the loneliest little devil in the world. I remember only one happy day in my childhood, Valancy. Only one. Even you were better off than that. Dad had gone out to see an old friend in the country and took me along. I was turned loose in the barnyard and I spent the whole day 大打撃を与えるing nails in a 封鎖する of 支持を得ようと努めるd. I had a glorious day. When I had to go 支援する to my roomful of playthings in the big house in Montreal I cried. But I didn't tell Dad why. I never told him anything. It's always been a hard thing for me to tell things, Valancy—anything that went 深い. And most things went 深い with me. I was a 極度の慎重さを要する child and I was even more 極度の慎重さを要する as a boy. No one ever knew what I 苦しむd. Dad never dreamed of it.

"When he sent me to a 私的な school—I was only eleven—the boys ducked me in the swimming-戦車／タンク until I stood on a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and read aloud all the 宣伝s of Father's 特許 abominations. I did it—then"—Barney clinched his 握りこぶしs—"I was 脅すd and half 溺死するd and all my world was against me. But when I went to college and the sophs tried the same stunt I didn't do it." Barney smiled grimly. "They couldn't make me do it. But they could—and did—make my life 哀れな. I never heard the last of the Pills and the Bitters and the Hair Tonic. 'After using' was my 愛称—you see I'd always such a 厚い thatch. My four college years were a nightmare. You know—or you don't know—what merciless beasts boys can be when they get a 犠牲者 like me. I had few friends—there was always some 障壁 between me and the 肉親，親類d of people I cared for. And the other 肉親，親類d—who would have been very willing to be intimate with rich old Doc. Redfern's son—I didn't care for. But I had one friend—or thought I had. A clever, bookish chap—a bit of a writer. That was a 社債 between us—I had some secret aspirations along that line. He was older than I was—I looked up to him and worshipped him. For a year I was happier than I'd ever been. Then—a burlesque sketch （機の）カム out in the college magazine—a mordant thing, ridiculing Dad's 治療（薬）s. The 指名するs were changed, of course, but everybody knew what and who was meant. Oh, it was clever—damnably so—and witty. McGill 激しく揺するd with laughter over it. I 設立する out he had written it."

"Oh, were you sure?" Valancy's dull 注目する，もくろむs 炎上d with indignation.

"Yes. He 認める it when I asked him. Said a good idea was 価値（がある） more to him than a friend, any time. And he 追加するd a gratuitous thrust. 'You know, Redfern, there are some things money won't buy. For instance—it won't buy you a grandfather.' 井戸／弁護士席, it was a 汚い 激突する. I was young enough to feel 削減（する） up. And it destroyed a lot of my ideals and illusions, which was the worst thing about it. I was a young misanthrope after that. Didn't want to be friends with any one. And then—the year after I left college—I met Ethel 横断する."

Valancy shivered. Barney, his 手渡すs stuck in his pockets, was regarding the 床に打ち倒す moodily and didn't notice it.

"Dad told you about her, I suppose. She was very beautiful. And I loved her. Oh, yes, I loved her. I won't 否定する it or belittle it now. It was a lonely, romantic boy's first 熱烈な love, and it was very real. And I thought she loved me. I was fool enough to think that. I was wildly happy when she 約束d to marry me. For a few months. Then—I 設立する out she didn't. I was an involuntary eavesdropper on a 確かな occasion for a moment. That moment was enough. The proverbial 運命／宿命 of the eavesdropper overtook me. A girl friend of hers was asking her how she could stomach Doc. Redfern's son and the 特許-薬／医学 background.

"'His money will gild the Pills and sweeten the Bitters,' said Ethel, with a laugh. 'Mother told me to catch him if I could. We're on the 激しく揺するs. But pah! I smell turpentine whenever he comes 近づく me.'"

"Oh, Barney!" cried Valancy, wrung with pity for him. She had forgotten all about herself and was filled with compassion for Barney and 激怒（する） against Ethel 横断する. How dared she?

"井戸／弁護士席,"—Barney got up and began pacing 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the room—"that finished me. 完全に. I left civilisation and those accursed 麻薬s behind me and went to the Yukon. For five years I knocked about the world—in all sorts of outlandish places. I earned enough to live on—I wouldn't touch a cent of Dad's money. Then one day I woke up to the fact that I no longer cared a hang about Ethel, one way or another. She was somebody I'd known in another world—that was all. But I had no hankering to go 支援する to the old life. 非，不，無 of that for me. I was 解放する／自由な and I meant to keep so. I （機の）カム to Mistawis—saw Tom MacMurray's island. My first 調書をとる／予約する had been published the year before, and made a 攻撃する，衝突する—I had a bit of money from my 王族s. I bought my island. But I kept away from people. I had no 約束 in anybody. I didn't believe there was such a thing as real friendship or true love in the world—not for me, anyhow—the son of Purple Pills. I used to revel in all the wild yarns they told of me. In fact, I'm afraid I 示唆するd a few of them myself. By mysterious 発言／述べるs which people 解釈する／通訳するd in the light of their own prepossessions.

"Then—you （機の）カム. I had to believe you loved me—really loved me—not my father's millions. There was no other 推論する／理由 why you should want to marry a penniless devil with my supposed 記録，記録的な／記録する. And I was sorry for you. Oh, yes, I don't 否定する I married you because I was sorry for you. And then—I 設立する you the best and jolliest and dearest little pal and chum a fellow ever had. Witty—loyal—甘い. You made me believe again in the reality of friendship and love. The world seemed good again just because you were in it, honey. I'd have been willing to go on forever just as we were. I knew that, the night I （機の）カム home and saw my homelight 向こうずねing out from the island for the first time. And knew you were there waiting for me. After 存在 homeless all my life it was beautiful to have a home. To come home hungry at night and know there was a good supper and a cheery 解雇する／砲火／射撃—and you.

"But I didn't realise what you 現実に meant to me till that moment at the switch. Then it （機の）カム like a 雷 flash. I knew I couldn't live without you—that if I couldn't pull you loose in time I'd have to die with you. I 収容する／認める it bowled me over—knocked me silly. I couldn't get my bearings for a while. That's why I 行為／法令／行動するd like a mule. But the thought that drove me to the tall 木材／素質 was the awful one that you were going to die. I'd always hated the thought of it—but I supposed there wasn't any chance for you, so I put it out of my mind. Now I had to 直面する it—you were under 宣告，判決 of death and I couldn't live without you. When I （機の）カム home last night I had made up my mind that I'd take you to all the specialists in the world—that something surely could be done for you. I felt sure you couldn't be as bad as Dr. Trent thought, when those moments on the 跡をつける hadn't even 傷つける you. And I 設立する your 公式文書，認める—and went mad with happiness—and a little terror for 恐れる you didn't care much for me, after all, and had gone away to get rid of me. But now, it's all 権利, isn't it, darling?"

Was she, Valancy 存在 called "darling"?

"I can't believe you care for me," she said helplessly. "I know you can't. What's the use, Barney? Of course, you're sorry for me—of course you want to do the best you can to straighten out the mess. But it can't be straightened out that way. You couldn't love me—me." She stood up and pointed tragically to the mirror over the mantel. Certainly, not even Allan Tierney could have seen beauty in the woeful, haggard little 直面する 反映するd there.

Barney didn't look at the mirror. He looked at Valancy as if he would like to snatch her—or （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 her.

"Love you! Girl, you're in the very 核心 of my heart. I 持つ／拘留する you there like a jewel. Didn't I 約束 you I'd never tell you a 嘘（をつく）? Love you! I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of 団体／死体 and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There's nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy."

"You're—a good actor, Barney," said Valancy, with a 病弱な little smile.

Barney looked at her.

"So you don't believe me—yet?"

"I—can't."

"Oh—damn!" said Barney violently.

Valancy looked up startled. She had never seen this Barney. Scowling! 注目する，もくろむs 黒人／ボイコット with 怒り／怒る. Sneering lips. Dead-white 直面する.

"You don't want to believe it," said Barney in the silk-smooth 発言する／表明する of ultimate 激怒（する）. "You're tired of me. You want to get out of it—解放する／自由な from me. You're ashamed of the Pills and the Liniment, just as she was. Your Stirling pride can't stomach them. It was all 権利 as long as you thought you hadn't long to live. A good lark—you could put up with me. But a lifetime with old Doc Redfern's son is a different thing. Oh, I understand—perfectly. I've been very dense—but I understand, at last."

Valancy stood up. She 星／主役にするd into his furious 直面する. Then—she suddenly laughed.

"You darling!" she said. "You do mean it! You do really love me! You wouldn't be so enraged if you didn't."

Barney 星／主役にするd at her for a moment. Then he caught her in his 武器 with the little low laugh of the 勝利を得た lover.

Uncle Benjamin, who had been frozen with horror at the keyhole, suddenly 雪解けd out and tiptoed 支援する to Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles.

"Everything is all 権利," he 発表するd jubilantly.

Dear little Doss! He would send for his lawyer 権利 away and alter his will again. Doss should be his 単独の heiress. To her that had should certainly be given.

Mrs. Frederick, returning to her comfortable belief in an overruling Providence, got out the family Bible and made an 入ること／参加（者） under "Marriages."

CHAPTER XLIII

"But, barney," 抗議するd Valancy after a few minutes, "your father—somehow—gave me to understand that you still loved her."

"He would. Dad 持つ／拘留するs the 選手権 for making 失敗s. If there's a thing that's better left unsaid you can 信用 him to say it. But he isn't a bad old soul, Valancy. You'll like him."

"I do, now."

"And his money isn't tainted money. He made it honestly. His 薬／医学s are やめる 害のない. Even his Purple Pills do people whole heaps of good when they believe in them."

"But—I'm not fit for your life," sighed Valancy. "I'm not—clever—or 井戸／弁護士席-educated—or—"

"My life is in Mistawis—and all the wild places of the world. I'm not going to ask you to live the life of a society woman. Of course, we must spend a bit of the time with Dad—he's lonely and old—"

"But not in that big house of his," pleaded Valancy. "I can't live in a palace."

"Can't come 負かす／撃墜する to that after your Blue 城," grinned Barney. "Don't worry, 甘い. I couldn't live in that house myself. It has a white marble stairway with gilt bannisters and looks like a furniture shop with the labels off. Likewise it's the pride of Dad's heart. We'll get a little house somewhere outside of Montreal—in the real country—近づく enough to see Dad often. I think we'll build one for ourselves. A house you build for yourself is so much nicer than a 手渡す-me-負かす／撃墜する. But we'll spend our summers in Mistawis. And our autumns travelling. I want you to see the Alhambra—it's the nearest thing to the Blue 城 of your dreams I can think of. And there's an old-world garden in Italy where I want to show you the moon rising over Rome through the dark cypress-trees."

"Will that be any lovelier than the moon rising over Mistawis?"

"Not lovelier. But a different 肉親，親類d of loveliness. There are so many 肉親，親類d of loveliness. Valancy, before this year you've spent all your life in ugliness. You know nothing of the beauty of the world. We'll climb mountains—追跡（する） for treasures in the bazaars of Samarcand—search out the 魔法 of east and west—run 手渡す in 手渡す to the 縁 of the world. I want to show you it all—see it again through your 注目する，もくろむs. Girl, there are a million things I want to show you—do with you—say to you. It will take a lifetime. And we must see about that picture by Tierney, after all."

"Will you 約束 me one thing?" asked Valancy solemnly.

"Anything," said Barney recklessly.

"Only one thing. You are never, under any circumstances or under any 誘発, to cast it up to me that I asked you to marry me."

CHAPTER XLIV

抽出する from letter written by 行方不明になる Olive Stirling to Mr. Cecil Bruce:

"It's really disgusting that Doss' crazy adventures should have turned out like this. It makes one feel that there is no use in behaving 適切に.

"I'm sure her mind was unbalanced when she left home. What she said about a dust-pile showed that. Of course I don't think there was ever a thing the 事柄 with her heart. Or perhaps Snaith or Redfern or whatever his 指名する really is fed Purple Pills to her, 支援する in that Mistawis hut and cured her. It would make やめる a testimonial for the family 広告s, wouldn't it?

"He's such an insignificant-looking creature. I について言及するd this to Doss but all she said was, 'I don't like collar 広告 men.'

"井戸／弁護士席, he's certainly no collar 広告 man. Though I must say there is something rather distinguished about him, now that he has 削減（する） his hair and put on decent 着せる／賦与するs. I really think, Cecil, you should 演習 more. It doesn't do to get too fleshy.

"He also （人命などを）奪う，主張するs, I believe, to be John Foster. We can believe that or not, as we like, I suppose.

"Old Doc Redfern has given them two millions for a wedding-現在の. Evidently the Purple Pills bring in the bacon. They're going to spend the 落ちる in Italy and the winter in Egypt and モーター through Normandy in apple-blossom time. Not in that dreadful old Lizzie, though. Redfern has got a wonderful new car.

"井戸／弁護士席, I think I'll run away, too, and 不名誉 myself. It seems to 支払う／賃金.

"Uncle Ben is a 叫び声をあげる. Likewise Uncle James. The fuss they all make over Doss now is 絶対 sickening. To hear Aunt Amelia talking of 'my son-in-法律, Bernard Redfern' and 'my daughter, Mrs. Bernard Redfern.' Mother and Father are as bad as the 残り／休憩（する）. And they can't see that Valancy is just laughing at them all in her sleeve."

CHAPTER XLV

Valancy and Barney turned under the 本土／大陸 pines in the 冷静な／正味の dusk of the September night for a 別れの（言葉，会） look at the Blue 城. Mistawis was 溺死するd in sunset lilac light, incredibly delicate and elusive. 阻止する and Tuck were cawing lazily in the old pines. Good Luck and Banjo were mewed and mewing in separate baskets in Barney's new, dark-green car en 大勝する to Cousin Georgiana's. Cousin Georgiana was going to take care of them until Barney and Valancy （機の）カム 支援する. Aunt Wellington and Cousin Sarah and Aunt Alberta had also entreated the 特権 of looking after them, but to Cousin Georgiana was it given. Valancy was in 涙／ほころびs.

"Don't cry, Moonlight. We'll be 支援する next summer. And now we're off for a real honeymoon."

Valancy smiled through her 涙／ほころびs. She was so happy that her happiness terrified her. But, にもかかわらず the delights before her—'the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome'—誘惑する of the ageless Nile—glamour of the Riviera—イスラム教寺院 and palace and minaret—she knew perfectly 井戸／弁護士席 that no 位置／汚点／見つけ出す or place or home in the world could ever 所有する the sorcery of her Blue 城.

THE END

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