Chapter 2
THE WHITE WOMAN IN THE WOOD.I seek a sail that never looms from out the purple haze
At rosy dawn, or fading eve, or in the noontide’s blaze.
Celia Thaxter.
Cecil walked listlessly on through the wood. He was worn out by
the day’s efforts, though it was as yet but the middle of the
afternoon. There was a feeling of exhaustion in his lungs, a
fluttering pain about his heart, the result of years of over-work
upon a delicate frame. With this feeling of physical weakness came
always the fear that his strength might give way ere his work was
done. Nor was this all. In these times of depression, the longing
to see again the faces of his friends, to have again the sweet
graceful things of the life that was forever closed to him, rushed
over him in a bitter flood.
The trail
