he did
not know how.

One evening when he went to Four Winds he found the door open and,
seeing the Captain in the living room, he stepped in unannounced.
Captain Anthony was sitting by the table, his head in his hands; at
Alan's entrance he turned upon him a haggard face, blackened by a
furious scowl beneath which blazed eyes full of malevolence.

"What do you want here?" he said, following up the demand with a
string of vile oaths.

Before Alan could summon his scattered wits, Lynde glided in with a
white, appealing face. Wordlessly she grasped Alan's arm, drew him
out, and shut the door.

"Oh, I've been watching for you," she said breathlessly. "I was afraid
you might come tonight--but I missed you."

"But your father?" said Alan in amazement. "How have I angered him?"

"Hush. Come into the garden. I will explain there."

He followed her into the little enclosure where the red and white
roses were now in full blow.

"Father isn't angry with you," said Lynde in a low shamed voice. "It's
just--he takes strange moods sometimes. Then he seems to hate us
all--even me--and he is like that for days. He seems to suspect and
dread everybody as if they were plotting against him. You--perhaps you
think he has been drinking? No, that is not the trouble. These
terrible moods come on without any cause that we know of. Even Mother
could not do anything with him when he was like that. You must go away
now--and do not come back until his dark mood has passed. He will be
just as glad to see you as ever then, and this will not make any
difference with him. Don't come back for a week at least."

"I do not like to leave you in such trouble, Miss Oliver."

"Oh, it doesn't matter about me--I have Emily. And there is nothing
you could do. Please go at once. Father knows I am talking to you and
that will vex him still more."

Alan, realizing that he could not help her and that his presence only
made matters worse, went away perplexedly. The following week was a
miserable one for him. His duties were distasteful to him and meeting
his people a positive torture. Sometimes Mrs. Danby looked dubiously
at him and seemed on the point of saying something--but never said it.
Isabel King watched him when they met, with bold probing eyes. In his
abstraction he did not notice this any more than he noticed a certain
subtle change which had come over the members of his congregation--as
if a breath of suspicion had blown across them and tro