h none of the resentment he
would have felt at the interference a day previously. A man does not
mind a pin-prick when a limb is being wrenched away.

"I can promise you that my objectionable calls at Four Winds will
cease," he said sarcastically, when the Elder had finished. Elder
Trewin got himself away, feeling snubbed but relieved.

"Took it purty quiet," he reflected. "Don't believe there was much in
the yarns after all. Isabel King started them and probably she
exaggerated a lot. I suppose he's had some notion like as not of
bringing the Captain over to the church. But that's foolish, for he'd
never manage it, and meanwhile was giving occasion for gossip. It's
just as well to stop it. He's a good pastor and he works hard--too
hard, mebbe. He looked real careworn and worried today."

The Rexton gossip soon ceased with the cessation of the young
minister's visits to Four Winds. A month later it suffered a brief
revival when a tall grim-faced old woman, whom a few recognized as
Captain Anthony's housekeeper, was seen to walk down the Rexton road
and enter the manse. She did not stay there long--watchers from a
dozen different windows were agreed upon that--and nobody, not even
Mrs. Danby, who did her best to find out, ever knew why she had
called.

Emily looked at Alan with grim reproach when she was shown into his
study, and as soon as they were alone she began with her usual
abruptness, "Mr. Douglas, why have you given up coming to Four Winds?"

Alan flinched.

"You must ask Lynde that, Miss Oliver," he said quietly.

"I have asked her--and she says nothing."

"Then I cannot tell you."

Anger glowed in Emily's eyes.

"I thought you were a gentleman," she said bitterly. "You are not. You
are breaking Lynde's heart. She's gone to a shadow of herself and
she's fretting night and day. You went there and made her like
you--oh, I've eyes--and then you left her."

Alan bent over his desk and looked the old woman in the face
unflinchingly.

"You are mistaken, Miss Oliver," he said earnestly. "I love Lynde and
would be only too happy if it were possible that I could marry her. I
am not to blame for what has come about--she will tell you that
herself if you ask her."

His look and tone convinced Emily.

"Who is to blame then? Lynde herself?"

"No, no."

"The Captain then?"

"Not in the sense you mean. I can tell you nothing more."

A baffled expression crossed the old woman's face. "There's a mystery