stables to keep old Tom company, preferring to
drive with Philip in the hitherto-despised Ark--preferring apparently
above all things to sit at home in front of the fire, with a puppy and
her sewing for company. Tomboy Jacqueline with a needle in her hands was
a sight which somehow troubled Philip even more than it amused him.
Often when he came upon her unexpectedly, he noted traces of tears about
her eyes--a signal always for the sudden flow of high spirits which
Philip found at times almost painful.

The girl was not happy. Channing had certainly left his mark.

"Damn the fellow!" said Philip to himself, most unclerically; and his
anger did not cool with time.

He redoubled his tender care of Jacqueline; considerate of every mood,
constantly praising and encouraging her, daily planning little surprises
for her pleasure (the puppy had been one of them); doing everything
possible, in fact, except make love to her. That would have been
possible, too, for she was very sweet, a true daughter of Helen; and he
a young and normal man, sorely in need of comforting. But guessing what
he did of the girl's heart, he would not have offered her the indignity
of unwelcome love-making.

"It is just like being married to a dear big brother," Jacqueline
explained naively to her mother. "Philip is the best friend in the
world!"

"I know. He would be, dear fellow," Kate replied, well content,
remembering with a sudden shudder, despite the years which had passed, a
husband who had never been a friend to her.

Kate was seeing very little of her new son-in-law in those days. Often
as she came to the rectory--and she had formed the habit of dropping in
once or twice a day on her way to and from her lonely house--she rarely
found Philip at home.

"What does he find to do that keeps him so busy these winter days?" she
marveled.

"Oh, sick parishioners, and ailing cows, and things like that. He's
always tearing about on horseback, or making long journeys somewhere in
the Ark--I wish Jemmy had never given it to him! He manages to find
duties that keep him out of doors just as long as there's any daylight
to see by. And as if that weren't enough, he has fixed up the choir-room
over at the church for a sort of study, because he says he can't write
sermons with me about--I'm too distracting! Did you ever hear such
nonsense? When I sit just as quiet as a mouse, and don't do a thing but
watch him, or perhaps sit on a foot-stool beside him