"I know that. But that doesn't answer me. Why did she go?"

"Keziah hadn't been to the parsonage sence that day when you was fust
took sick, and I expect likely she felt that she'd ought to--"

"Please, Mrs. Higgins, tell me the truth. I'm not asking about Mrs.
Coffin. Didn't Miss Van Horne tell you her reason for leaving?"

"No, she didn't."

"But you know the reason? You're keeping something from me. Did she say
when she would come back?"

"No, not exactly, but, of course--"

"I know you're keeping something from me. What has happened?"

"Happened? Land sakes! does anything ever happen in Trumet?"

"I think a good many things have happened lately. And the longer you
keep the truth from me the more I shall suspect."

"Mr. Ellery, you set still in that chair, or, when the doctor comes,
he'll put you to bed. I've got some cookin' to do and I can't set here
gossipin' no longer. You behave yourself and stop frettin'. I'm skipper
here now--er--for a while, anyhow--and you've got to take orders from
me. There! now I cal'late you're scared, ain't you?"

He did not seem greatly frightened, nor in awe of his new skipper.
Instead, he was evidently preparing to ask more questions. Mrs. Higgins
hurriedly fled to the living room and closed the door behind her.

The minister heard her rattling pans and dishes at a great rate. The
noise made him nervous and he wished she might be more quiet. He moved
to the chair nearest the window and looked out over the dunes and the
wide stretch of tumbling blue sea. The surf was rolling up the shore,
the mackerel gulls were swooping and dipping along the strand, the beach
grass was waving in the wind. A solitary fish boat was beating out past
the spar buoy. She was almost over the spot when the San Jose had first
anchored.

The view was a familiar one. He had seen it in all weathers, during a
storm, at morning when the sun was rising, at evening when the moon
came up to tip the watery ridges with frosted silver. He had liked
it, tolerated it, hated it, and then, after she came, loved it. He had
thought it the most beautiful scene in all the world and one never to be
forgotten. The dingy old building, with its bare wooden walls, had been
first a horror, then a prison, and at last a palace of contentment. With
the two women, one a second mother to him, and the other dearest of
all on earth, he could have lived there forever. But now the old prison
feeling was coming back. He was ti