"My work furnishes enough of romance for me," he sometimes thought. "And, if I want to remain a civilized human being, I had better stick to the life in which I was brought up. I never suspected how much of a 'cave man' I was until I got into the heart of the primitive. Whew! Supposing I had killed Judd that afternoon! There were a few moments when it would have been a pleasure to have done it. Or supposing he had killed me! He wanted to, right enough. Puck was right."
And so, while the months passed, Fortune smiled on the brilliant young physician, and daily laid new tributes of wealth, honor and affection at his feet.
In the mountain cabin it was otherwise.
Changes, born of the travail of tragic happenings, cast their ever-lengthening shadows over Smiles' life, blotting out the golden sunlight of childhood, and overlaying it with the deeper tones of womanhood.
Judd, her companion since baby days, she no longer called "friend," and he, for his part, steadily avoided her and the cabin which had once been a second home to him. Big Jerry, uncomplaining ever, day by day grew more feeble and pain-wracked, and so became more and more a dear burden to her. Only Mr. Talmadge, of her real intimates, remained unchanged in his relations with her, unless it was that in his deep and understanding sympathy he brought her greater spiritual and mental comfort than ever. The other neighbors were kind always, in their rough, well-meaning way; but he was her chief guide and comforter, and in him, and the books which Donald conscientiously sent to her every few weeks, she found the strength to carry forward.
So, in the never-ending tasks which her daily life provided, and which she performed with distress in her heart, but a smile on her lips, Rose saw the weeks come and go, bringing in their slow-moving, but inexorable, train, autumn, fall and another winter.