s way down
across the country to Salem, which he reached a few hours after sunrise.
At the doorway of the house he met Mrs. Llyn.

"Have you told her?" he asked in anxiety. Astonished at his presence
she could make no reply for a moment. "I have told her nothing," she
answered. "I meant to do so this morning. I meant to do it--I must."

"She sent me a letter asking if it was not time I came to wish you well
in your house, and you and she would expect me to-day."

"I knew naught of her writing you," was the reply--"naught at all. But
now that you are here, will you not tell her all?"

Dyck smiled grimly. "Where is she?" he asked. "I will tell her."

The mother pointed down the garden. "Yonder by the clump of palms I saw
her a moment ago. If you go that way you will find her."

In another moment Dyck Calhoun was on his way to the clump of palms, and
before he reached it, the girl came out into the path. She was dressed
in a black silk skirt with a white bodice and lace, as he had seen her
on her arrival in Kingston, and at her throat was a sprig of the wild
pear-tree. When she saw him, she gave a slight start, then stood still,
and he came to her.

"I have your letter," he said, "and I came to say what I ought to say
about your living here: you will bring blessings to the place."

She looked at him steadfastly. "Shall we talk here," she said, "or
inside the house? There is a little shelter here in the trees"--pointing
to the right--"a shelter built by the late manager. It has the covering
of a hut, but it is open at two sides. Will you come?" As she went
on ahead, he could not fail to notice how slim and trim she was, how
perfectly her figure seemed to fit her gown-as though she had been
poured into it; and yet the folds of her skirt waved and floated like
silky clouds around her! Under cover of the shelter, she turned and
smiled at him.

"You have seen my mother?"

"I have just come from her," he answered. "She bade me tell you what
ought to have been told long ago, and you were not, for there seemed no
reason that you should. You were young and ignorant and happy. You had
no cares, no sorrows. The sorrows that had come to your mother belonged
to days when you were scarce out of the cradle. But you did not know.
You were not aware that your mother had divorced your father for crime
against marital fidelity and great cruelty. You did not know even who
that father was. Well, I must tell you. Your father was a ha