With another dry “Thank you,” the professor passed on.  He was limping slightly, otherwise he would have passed on much faster.  His instinct was to seek cover before giving vent to the emotion which consumed him.

Behind the alders, and taking the precaution of stuffing his mouth with a towel, he could release this rising gust of almost hysterical laughter.

That was Dr. Herbert Farr!  The fulfilled vision of the learned scholar he had come so far to see capped with nicety the climax of this absurd adventure.  What an utter fool, what an unbelievable idiot he had made of himself!  For the moment he saw clear and all normal reactions proved inadequate.  There was left only laughter.

When this was over he felt better.  Withdrawing the towel and wiping the tears of strangled mirth from his eyes he looked around him.  The sylvan bathroom was indeed a charming place.  Great rocks, all smooth and brown with velvet moss, curved gently down to form a basin into which fell the water from the tiny stream whose musical flowing had called to him through his window.  Around, and somewhat back beneath tall sentinel trees, crept the bushes and bracken of the mountain; but, above, the foliage opened and the sun shone in, turning the brown-green water of the pool to gold.  With a sigh of pure delight the laughter-weary professor stepped into its cool brightness—­and with a gasp of something very different, stepped quickly out again.  But, quick as he was, the liquid ice of that green-gold pool was quicker.  It ran through his tortured nerve like mounting fire—­“Oh—­ oh—­damn!” said the professor heartily.

The sweat stood out on his forehead before he had rubbed and warmed the outraged limb into some semblance of quietude again.  The pool seemed no longer lovely.  Very gingerly he completed such ablutions as were strictly necessary and then, very cold, very stiff and very, very empty he turned back toward the house.

This time, instead of passing through the small vegetable garden behind the kitchen, he skirted the clearing, coming out into the wide, open space in front of the cottage.  On one side of him, and behind, spread the mountain woods but before him and to the right the larger trees were down.  There was a vista—­for the first time since he had sat upon a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his foolishness, his hunger, his aching nerves, his smarting pride, everything!  The beauty before him filled his heart and mind, leaving not a cranny anywhere for lesser things.  Blue sea, blue sky, blue mountains, blue smoke that rose in misty spirals as from a thousand fairy fires and, nearer, the sun-warmed, dew-drenched green—­green of the earth, green of the trees, green of the graceful, sweeping curves of wooded point and bay.  Far away, on peaks half hidden, snow still lay—­a whiteness so ethereal that the gazer caught his breath.

And with it all there was the scent of something—­something so fresh, so penetrating, so infinitely sweet—­what could it be?