d it away. "You be such a
dear, good, careful father, John," she said, as she tucked in with a
caressing movement the long ends of his kerchief. "I was only thinking
that if it be good to watch, it is far better to trust--there then,
isn't it, father?"

"Why, my dear, I'll watch first and I'll trust after--that's right
enough, isn't it, Joan?"

Joan sighed and smiled, and Penelles, with his pipe in his mouth,
turned his face landward. Joan thought a moment and then called to
him:

"Father! Paul Tynton is very bad to-day. He was taken ill when the
moon was three days old; men die who sicken on that day. Hadn't you
better call and speak a word with him? He is in your class, you
know."

"He was taken when the moon was four days old; he'll have a hard
little time, but he'll get up again."

There was nothing else she could think of, and she knit her brows and
turned in to her house duties. Joan did not want any meeting between
her husband and Roland Tresham. She did not want anything to occur
which would interfere with Denas visiting Miss Tresham, for these
visits were a source of great pleasure to Denas and great pride to
herself. And Joan could not believe that there was any danger to be
feared from Roland; Denas had known him for two years and nothing evil
had yet happened. If Roland had said one wrong word to Denas, Joan was
sure her child would have told her.

While she was thinking of these things, John Penelles went slowly up
the winding path that led to the top of the cliff. It was sweet and
bright on either hand with the fragile, delicate flowers of early
spring. He stopped frequently to look at them, and he longed to touch
them, to hold them in his palm, to put them against his lips. But he
looked at his big, hard hands, and then at the flowers, and so,
shaking his head, walked on. The blackbird was piping and the
missel-thrush singing in one or two of her seven languages, and John
felt the spring joy stirring in his own heart to melody. He sat in the
singing-pew at St. Penfer Chapel, and he had a noble voice, so he
shook the ashes out of his pipe, and clasping his hands behind his
back was just going to give the blackbirds and thrushes his evening
song, when he heard the rippling laugh of Denas a little ahead of
him.

He told himself in a moment that it was not her usual laugh. He could
not for his life have defined the difference, but there it was. Before
he saw her he knew that Roland Tresham was with