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 he said, “when God has really given me surcease, when for a minute a gold-haired vision of childhood has dropped from my mind, when for a minute the pain of the sin I committed against the woman I loved has been obliterated. If it can do that for a man carrying the burden that has been my portion, there is a prospect that a young man with health in his body and a heart without secrets might find the same great blessing in daily beneficence.”

Jamie looked at the Bee Master and winced. For one second he sat with his lips open and his tongue ready to fashion words, and then he reflected that he had no right to tell a secret unless it were his secret alone. He had no right to describe the Storm Woman. He had no right to tell any man of the shame baby he had covered with his name. If there had been anything magnanimous in his deed, it would lose the fine flavour, the beauty that such a deed might have, if he talked about it. If he lived, there might possibly be something more to that phase of his adventure. If he died, he would face his Maker more of a man if he kept his mouth shut concerning a subject. that drove so noble a specimen of womanhood as the woman he had married to the course she had taken.

“The next time you come,” said the Bee Master, “make it on Saturday and bring the Scout Master with you. That little Scout gets under my cuticle so deeply that I am hungry for the odour of horse and the tang of dog, and all the outdoors that carries wherever the Scout Master goes.”

Jamie leaned forward with a broad grin on his face.