taste was
the cause of her aversion.

Yet she was exceedingly happy. The hope that had sustained her so
long, that had been so nearly lost, now seemed certain of fulfilment,
and no one but she and God knew how much this truth meant. Only He had
been her confidant, and she felt that she had been sustained in her
struggle from weakness to strength by a Power that was not human, and
guided during the past weeks by a wisdom beyond her own.

"He has proved to me a good Father," was her simple belief. "He led
me to do the best I could for myself, and then did the rest. I also
am sure He would have sustained me had I failed utterly. That my life
would not have been vain and useless was shown when I saved little
Nellie Wilder."

Thus it may be seen that she was quite unlike many good people. In her
consciousness God was not a being to be worshipped decorously and then
counted out from that which made her real life and hope.

The future now stretched away full of rest and glad assurance.
Graydon's manner already began to fulfil his promise. He would quietly
accept the situation as he understood it, and she saw already the
steadying power of an unselfish, unfaltering purpose. He appeared by
years an older and a graver man, and when he sat by her during the
service in the wide parlor, there was not a trace of his old flippant
irreverence. Whatever he now believed, he had attained the higher
breeding which respects what is sacred to others.

She had but little compunction over his self-sacrificing mood. It
was perfectly clear that by quiet, manly devotion he proposed to help
"time heal the wound" made by that "idiot" at Santa Barbara, and
she that she could gradually reveal to him so much improvement that
equanimity and at last hope would find a place in his mind.

They parted Monday morning with a brief, strong pressure of
hands, which Graydon felt conveyed volumes of sympathy and mutual
understanding. She had said that he could write to her, and he found
he had so much to say that he had to put a strong constraint upon
himself.

Mr. Muir had watched them curiously during his stay in the mountains,
and felt that something had occurred which he could not fathom.
Graydon's manner at parting and since, during business hours, had
confirmed this impression. He was almost as grave and reticent as the
banker himself, and the latter began to chafe and grow irritable over
the problem which he was bent on seeing solved in but one w