not know that it could be kept. By the next night
he had opened the doors wide to his dark thoughts
and they had come trooping and rushing back.
He left the valley and went on his wandering way
again. But, strange as it seemed to him, there
were minutes -- sometimes half-hours -- when,
without his knowing why, the black burden seemed
to lift itself again and he knew he was a living
man and not a dead one. Slowly -- slowly -- for
no reason that he knew of -- he was "coming
alive" with the garden.

As the golden summer changed into the deeper
golden autumn he went to the Lake of Como.
There he found the loveliness of a dream. He
spent his days upon the crystal blueness of the lake
or he walked back into the soft thick verdure of the
hills and tramped until he was tired so that he
might sleep. But by this time he had begun to
sleep better, he knew, and his dreams had ceased
to be a terror to him.

"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing
stronger."

It was growing stronger but -- because of the
rare peaceful hours when his thoughts were
changed -- his soul was slowly growing stronger,
too. He began to think of Misselthwaite and
wonder if he should not go home. Now and then
he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked

[[359]]

p358 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p359w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p360

v?