“Saturday,” she mused, “and Martin expects Cherry to go with him on Monday!  Expects her to go back with him to a life of misery for her, existence with a man she hates!  Oh, Cherry—­my little sister!—­there can be no happiness for you there!  And Peter!  Peter is left behind to me, who cannot comfort him, or still the ache that is tearing his heart!  My two loved ones, and what can I do to help them!”

Driving slowly, on the noiseless pine-needles, she looked up at the great, brown shafts of the trees through which the roadway wound like a shelf.  Streaks of sunlight filtered through them; the September air was soft and sweet.  The forest was like an old friend to Alix, and the time she spent in it was always her quietest time.  The tempered light, the air scented with piney sweetness, the delicate summer humming of tiny forest voices, the brief snap of twigs, and the rustling of tiny bodies in the underbrush, these made the world in which she was most at home.

“Oh, why can’t we always be like children, just happy to be free!” she mused, as she left the forest and came in sight of the cabin.  “How happy we used to be, playing in these woods and going home tired and hungry to Dad and supper!  Buck,” she said aloud, “a dog is happier than a man, and perhaps”—­and Alix smiled her whimsical smile, as the car moved under the last oaks and was brought to a standstill close to the house—­“perhaps a tree is the happiest of all!”

She had come up to the cabin to do the usual last little daily fussing among the ducks and chickens and to bring Peter, if Peter had not gone into town, back with her to Cherry’s house.  They had all dined in the old Strickland house the night before, and because of a sudden rainfall had decided to spend the night there, too.  The Chinese boy who had been helping the sisters with their housecleaning had been persuaded to cook the dinner and get breakfast, and the evening about the old fireplace had been almost too poignantly sweet.  Martin, who had been mixing cocktails, liked the role of host, and to the other three every inch of the house was full of happy memories, softened and saddened by all that had happened since the old days, by all that they knew and felt now, and accompanied by the softly dripping rain on the roof and eaves as by a plaintive obbligato.

But suddenly, at about ten o’clock, Peter had surprised them all by getting to his feet.  He was going up to the cabin, he said—­ must go, in fact.

“In all the rain!” they had protested.

“In all the rain,” he answered, shaking himself into his coat; he liked rain.  He would rather walk, please, he told Alix, when she offered to drive him up in the car.  Bewildered and a little apprehensive, she let him go.  To Cherry, who seemed to feel suddenly sad and uneasy, Alix laughed about it, but she was secretly worried herself, and immediately after breakfast the next morning decided to run up to the cabin in the car and assure herself that everything was right there.