t neither I nor my father recognize
your right to these woods."

"Your father?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Don't you know who I am?" she said, in surprise.

"I know you sing very beautifully in church," he said, smiling.

"My name," she said, quietly, "is the name of your father's old
neighbor. I am Jessie Jocelyn."

His face was troubled, even in his surprise. The line between his eyes
deepened. "I did not know you were Mr. Jocelyn's daughter," he said, at
last.

Neither spoke for a moment. Presently Gordon raised his head and found
her brown eyes on him.

"I wish," he said, wistfully, "that you would let me walk with you a
little way. I want to ask your advice. Will you?"

"I am going home," she said, coldly.

She turned away, moving two or three paces, then the next step was less
hasty, and the next was slower still. As he joined her she looked up a
trifle startled, then bent her head.

"Miss Jocelyn," he said, abruptly, "have you ever heard your father say
that my father treated him harshly?"

She stopped short beside him. "Have you?" he repeated, firmly.

"I think," she said, scornfully, "your father can answer that question."

"If he could," said Gordon, "I would ask him. He is dead."

She was listening to him with face half averted, but now she turned
around and met his eyes again.

"Will you answer my question?" he said.

"No," she replied, slowly; "not if he is dead."

Young Gordon's face was painfully white. "I beg you, Miss Jocelyn, to
answer me," he said. "I beg you will answer for your father's sake
and--in justice to my father's son."

"What do you care--" she began, but stopped short. To her surprise her
own bitterness seemed forced. She saw he did care. Suddenly she pitied
him.

"There was a promise broken," she said, gravely.

"What else?"

"A man's spirit."

They walked on, he clasping his gun with nerveless hands, she breaking
the sapless twigs as she passed, with delicate, idle fingers.

Presently he said, as though speaking to himself: "He had no quarrel
with the dead, nor has the dead with him--now. What my father would now
wish I can do--I can do even yet--"

Under her deep lashes her brown eyes rested on him pitifully. But at his
slightest motion she turned away, walking in silence.

As they reached the edge of the woods in a burst of sunshine he looked
up at her and she stopped. Below them the smoke curled from her
weather-racked house. "Will you have me for a guest