"Am I still in disgrace?
Brady's been restored to the bosom of his family for at least five days now, you know." Overhead, the sun was shining gloriously in an azure sky flecked with little bunchy white clouds like floating pieces of cotton-wool, while an April breeze, fragrant of budding leaf and blossom, rollicked up the street.

It seemed almost as though the frolicsome atmosphere of spring had permeated even the shell of the hermit and got into his system, for there was something incorrigibly boyish and youthful about him this morning.

His cheerful smile was infectious.
"Can't I be restored, too ?" he asked "Restored to what ?" asked Sara, trying to resist the contagion of his good humour.
"Oh, well"-- a faint shadow dimmed the sparkle in his eyes--"to the same old place I held before our squabble over Brady--just friends, Sara." For a moment she hesitated.

He had pitted his will against hers and won, hands down, and she felt distinctly resentful.

But she knew that in a strange, unforeseen way their quarrel had hurt her inexplicably.