"'For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
And come not by the far sea-way, yet come he surely will.
Close all the roads of all the world—Love's road is open still.'
"Do you believe that is true?"
"Not for me," he answered in a hoarse voice, so bitter, so resentful that it startled her, coming as it did after long silence. He gripped the arms of his chair again, as if in pain too great to endure, and then burst out vehemently, "Every road is closed to me now! It wouldn't be so hard if there was any prospect of the end coming soon, but I may have to hang on this way for years—just a living death! Caged in this helpless hulk of a body, a drag on every one and a misery to myself! Heavens! If I could only end it all!"
"Oh, Jack!" begged Mary, starting up, tears in her eyes. "Don't talk that way! You're not a drag on anybody! We couldn't live without you! You've been so brave—just like Aldebaran in the Jester's Sword. 'So bravely did he bear his lot, it seemed a kingly spirit dwelt among us!' Don't you know that just having you with us is more to us than anything else in the whole world?"
She was fairly wringing her hands in her distress over this revelation of the overwhelming bitterness of Jack's soul. For months he had been so cheerful, hiding his real feelings under a playfulness of manner, that it was a shock to her to find that his cheerfulness was only assumed. Because he "had met his hurt so bravely and made no sign" she, like the Jester, thought "the struggle had grown easier with time, and that he really felt the gladness that he feigned." Like the Jester, too, she was "at her wit's end for a reply." She could think of no word of comfort.
The loud halloo which sounded just then in a familiar voice from up the creek, was a welcome interruption. The next instant Norman came in sight around the curve. He was standing up in a flat-bottomed boat, poling down stream towards them, with the vigor and skill of a young Indian. It was a clumsy, home-made affair, with "The Swan" painted in blue letters on the side.
"She's mine for the winter!" he announced joyfully, as soon as he was within speaking distance. "A man who lives up past Klein's crossing rented it to me. I'm to chop wood awhile every Saturday to pay for the use of it."
Norman was so interested in his new possession that he could not see that he had interrupted a conversation of tragic seriousness.