acted with work now."

"I beg you not to apologize--it's time to start back, anyhow."

As they rode away down the valley, the girl silent and constrained,
Serviss pondered Lambert's words, which were plainly directed against
Clarke. His sense of responsibility was increased by Lambert's trust
in him. "This won't do," he decided; "I must pull out or I will find
myself laden with the woes of the entire family, and Clarke's
distresses besides."

The girl was invested now with compelling pathos. Each mile they
descended seemed to deepen the returning shadow on her face. The
gayety, the buoyancy of the upward trail was gone. She was silent,
constrained, and sad; and he set to work to restore her to the simple
and girlish candor of the morning. He called attention to the wonders
of the western sky. He shouted to induce echoes, and challenged her to
a race, and at the last descent dared her to ride down in one of the
ore-buckets, seeking to bring the smiles back to her lips.

She responded to his cheer, but not as before. Something clouded her
clear glance--her smiles died quickly, and the poise of her head was
less alert.

When they had reached the wagon-road and he could ride by her side,
he, too, became serious. "I hope I haven't given offence in any way,
Miss Lambert? If I have, I assure you it was entirely unintentional,
and I beg your pardon."

She looked away. "You have done nothing," she said, slowly.

"But you seem distinctly less friendly to me. I hope you didn't take
anything I said concerning your mother's faith to heart. I had no
intention of attacking her beliefs, but I must be honest with you--I
don't like Mr. Clarke. There's something unwholesome about him, and
what you've told me to-day is not reassuring. Evidently he took the
death of his wife very hard, and it has added to his natural tendency
towards a sort of spiritual monomania. As a matter of fact, he's more
Spiritualist than Calvinist at present. Isn't that so?"

The girl's face grew sullen and weary. "Oh, I don't know, I'm tired of
it all."

"He endlessly talks his grind, I suppose. How foolish, how sickly it
all seems--here in the presence of uncontaminated nature! In such
sunlight as this it seems insanity to sit in a book-walled room and
grow bloodless with dreaming over insoluble problems. And yet a friend
of mine told me that these towns, and especially California towns,
were filled with seers and prophets. The occult flourishes in the