ever being any necessity for him. No doubt
this morning he, miserable and unworthy skeptic, would be dowered with
the half of her prayers, and in that consciousness could he bear to
accept them, kneeling at the back of the church, unless he believed
utterly they were sanctified by something more than her own maidenhood?
Yet if he did not go to church Pauline would be disappointed, because
she would surely expect him. She would be like the blessed damozel
leaning out from the gold bar of Heaven and weeping because he did not
come. There was no gain from honesty, if she were made miserable by it.
It were better a thousand times he should kneel humbly at the back of
the church and pray for the faith that was hers. And why could he not
believe as she believed? If her faith were true, he suffered from
injustice by having no grace accorded to him. Or did there indeed lie
between him and her the impassable golden bar of Heaven? A cloud swept
across the morning sun, and Guy shivered. Then the church-bell began to
clang and, urging his canoe towards the churchyard, he jumped ashore and
knelt at the back of the church.

Guy had been aware during the service of the saintly pageant along the
windows of the clerestory slowly dimming, and he was not surprised, when
he came out, to see that clouds were dusking the first brilliance of the
day. Mrs. Grey, Monica, and Margaret had prayed each in a different part
of the church; but now in the porch they fluttered about Pauline with an
intimate and happy awareness of her birthday, almost seeming to wrap her
in it, so that she in flushed responsiveness wore all her twenty years
like a bunch of roses. Guy was sensitive to the faint reluctance with
which her mother and sisters resigned her to him on this birthday
morning; but yet to follow them back from church with Pauline beside him
in a trepidation of blushes and sparkles was too dear a joy for him in
turn to resign. Half-way to the house Pauline remembered that her father
had been left alone. This was too wide a breach in her birthday's
accustomed ceremony, and, much dismayed, she begged Guy to go back with
her. At that moment the rest of the family had disappeared round a curve
in the walk, and Guy caught Pauline to him, complaining she had not
kissed him since he was home.

"Oh, but Father!" she said, breathlessly, tugging. "He'll be so hurt if
we've gone on without him."

Guy felt a stab of jealousy that even a father should intrude