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 that its timbers stood the strain. In the course of all this dramatic business, by the way, Martin came to know Avis le Beau.

What with painting, teaching, and the drama, not to mention a whole host of lesser activities, Martin had quite a strenuous life of it at Kiteroa; but all work seemed to come light as a holiday to his buoyant nature. About mid-winter, indeed, he did “take a week off,” running up (the expression seemed just to fit such an agile temperament) to see his friends in town. But Mrs. Callender exclaimed with concern at the white and haggard face with which he returned. He laughed it off, of course: country air and cookery always suited him best, he explained, Kiteroa air for choice and Callender cookery; and he soon picked up again. Mrs. Callender feared, however, that there was some hidden delicacy, perhaps of the lungs, about him, and was more than ever fearful of it after he had taken another trip in spring, with the like result; and very glad indeed that he made no plans for leaving Kiteroa, and her unobtrusive cosseting; although it was just then that, for the first time, he fell behind in his payments, which seemed the more singular, since he had taken the sketch with the Jells’ house in it, and other pictures, up to town to sell.

And then, alas! soon after his return, a terrible calamity occurred, and a great grief overwhelmed good Mrs. Callender. One night Martin did not return from his class at Appleby. He did not come back the next day, either; it was not until the third afternoon that Dicky Jell drove him home in his gig, very dirty and dilapidated, very morose an