He knew from this letter that
Josephine did not suppose that blame attached to O'Shea. She spoke of
her husband's death as an accident. Caius knew that she had accepted it
as a deliverance from God. It was this attitude of hers which made the
whole circumstance appear to him the more solemn.
So Caius waited through the lovely season in which summer hovers with
warm sunshiny wings over a land of flowers before she settles down upon
it to abide. He was unhappy. A shade, whose name was Failure, lived
with him day by day, and spoke to him concerning the future as well as
the past. Debating much in his mind what he might do, fearing to make
his plight worse by doing anything, he grew timid at the very thought of
addressing Josephine. Happily, there is something more merciful to a man
than his own self--something which in his hour of need assists him, and
that often very bountifully.
CHAPTER XII.
TO CALL A SPIRIT FROM THE VASTY DEEP.
It was when the first wild-flowers of the year had passed away, and
scarlet columbine and meadow-rue waved lightly in the sunny glades of
the woods, and all the world was green--the new and perfect green of
June--that one afternoon Caius, at his father's door, met a visitor who
was most rarely seen there. It was Farmer Day. He accosted Caius,
perhaps a little sheepishly, but with an obvious desire to be civil, for
he had a favour to ask which he evidently considered of greater
magnitude than Caius did when he heard what it was.
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