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.