s scrutiny.

"But I have seen you often," she said, the heat of confession bright on
cheek and lip. "I never meant you to know, but now----! After the first
time you spoke to me so kindly and gayly--I was so very sorrowfully
alone--and the convent was so dull! My father's field-glasses were in my
trunk."

"Desire?"

"I fear I have no vocation for a nun. I--there is a huge rock half-way
down the hill with a clear view of this place. I have spent hours there,
watching these lawns and verandas, and the things you all did. It all
seemed so amusing and, and happy. You see, where I lived there were
almost no white people except my father and a priest at the Catholic
mission. So I learned to know Phillida and Mr. Vere and----"

"Then, all this time, Desire----"

"The glasses brought you very close," she whispered. "I knew you by
night and by day."

CHAPTER XXII

"Life hath its term, the assembly is dispersed,
And we have not described Thee from the first."
--GULISTAN.

I have come to the end of this narrative and with the end, I come to
what people of practical mind may call its explanation. Of the four of
us who were joined in living through the events of that summer, my wife
and I and Ethan Vere agree in one belief, while Phillida holds the
opinion of her father, the Professor. I think Bagheera, the cat, might
be added to our side also, if his testimony was available.

The press reports of the cloudburst and flood brought the Professor up
to Connecticut to verify with his own eyes his daughter's safety. Aunt
Caroline did not come with him, but I may here set down that she did
come later. They found their son-in-law by no means what their
forebodings menaced, so reconciled themselves at last to the marriage;
to Phillida's abiding joy.

But first the little Professor arrived alone, three days after the
storm. Characteristically, he had sent no warning of his coming, so no
one met him at the railway station. He arrived in one of those curious
products of a country livery stable known as a rig, driven by a local
reprobate whom no prohibition could sober.

I shall never forget the incredulous rapture with which Phillida
welcomed him, nor the pride with which she presented Vere.

The damages to the place were already being repaired, although weeks of
work would be needed to restore a condition of order and make the
changes we planned. The automobile had