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 a nice boy from there. He was killed in the war. His name was Nevin Baldwin.'

Yes, Sheilah had known Nevin Baldwin. She had been to his Junior Prom with him.

A few such establishing facts helped Sheilah enormously to play her rele with confidence. Was it a rele? Or was her life with Felix ardle? And had she returned for a little while to be the real Sheilah? She felt so at ease. Especially with Roger Dallinger.

She glanced at him now, surreptitiously, from beneath half-closed lids, contemplating him and their intimacy, lightly, dreamily, suppressing a shrug as she told herself there was nothing flattering in his attentions. He was just a very kind-hearted man, whom it amused to assume a sort of big-brother responsibility for a lonely woman's entertainment in a strange place; and for whom she was a convenient companion for the daily walk prescribed for him, also. For it appeared that Mr. Dallinger had come to Avidon's for its healing qualities, too. He had had an operation last spring, followed by pneumonia. One lung, lightly one day he had told Sheilah, had needed toning up.

To look at him one wouldn't think anything needed toning up. He was as rugged in appearance as the pine tree he leaned against; as physically sound, it flashed over Sheilah gazing at him, as