ld Emily grimly cordial, Lynde sometimes remote and demure,
sometimes frankly friendly. Occasionally, when the Captain was away in
his yacht, he went for a walk with her and her dogs along the shore or
through the sweet-smelling pinelands up the lake. He found that she
loved books and was avid for more of them than she could obtain; he
was glad to take her several and discuss them with her. She liked
history and travels best. With novels she had no patience, she said
disdainfully. She seldom spoke of herself or her past life and Alan
fancied she avoided any personal reference. But once she said
abruptly, "Why do you never ask me to go to church? I've always been
afraid you would."

"Because I do not think it would do you any good to go if you didn't
want to," said Alan gravely. "Souls should not be rudely handled any
more than bodies."

She looked at him reflectively, her finger denting her chin in a
meditative fashion she had.

"You are not at all like Mr. Strong. He always scolded me, when he got
a chance, for not going to church. I would have hated him if it had
been worthwhile. I told him one day that I was nearer to God under
these pines than I could be in any building fashioned by human hands.
He was very much shocked. But I don't want you to misunderstand me.
Father does not go to church because he does not believe there is a
God. But I know there is. Mother taught me so. I have never gone to
church because Father would not allow me, and I could not go now in
Rexton where the people talk about me so. Oh, I know they do--you know
it, too--but I do not care for them. I know I'm not like other girls.
I would like to be but I can't be--I never can be--now."

There was some strange passion in her voice that Alan did not quite
understand--a bitterness and a revolt which he took to be against the
circumstances that hedged her in.

"Is not some other life possible for you if your present life does not
content you?" he said gently.

"But it does content me," said Lynde imperiously. "I want no other--I
wish this life to go on forever--forever, do you understand? If I were
sure that it would--if I were sure that no change would ever come to
me, I would be perfectly content. It is the fear that a change will
come that makes me wretched. Oh!" She shuddered and put her hands over
her eyes.

Alan thought she must mean that when her father died she would be
alone in the world. He wanted to comfort her--reassure her--but