"Well, Marjie, you are young. You must lean on older counsel. There is
no man living as good and true as your father was to me. Remember that."

"Yes, there is," Marjie declared.

"Who is he, daughter?"

"Philip Baronet," Marjie answered proudly.

That afternoon Richard Tillhurst called and detained Marjie until she
was late in keeping her appointment with Judge Baronet. Tillhurst's tale
of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew
better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize
if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous
rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with
these things in mind that Marjie had met me. Rachel Melrose had swept in
on us, and I who had declared to my dear one that I should never care to
take another girl out to that sunny draw full of hallowed memories for
us two, I was going again with this beautiful woman, my sweetheart from
the East. And yet Marjie was quick enough to note that I had tried to
evade the company of Miss Melrose, and she had seen in my eyes the same
look that they had had for her all these years. Could I be deceiving her
by putting Rachel off in her presence? She did not want to think so. Had
Judge Baronet not been my father, he could have taken her into his
confidence. She could not speak to him of me, nor could he discuss his
son's actions with her.

But love is strong and patient, and Marjie determined not to give up at
the first onslaught against it.

"I'll write to him now," she said. "There will be sure to be a letter
for me up under 'Rockport.' He said something about a letter this
afternoon, the letter he promised to write after the party at
Anderson's. He couldn't be deceiving me, I'm sure. I'll tell him
everything, and if he really doesn't care for me,"--the blank of life
lay sullen and dull before her,--"I'll know it any how. But if he does
care, he'll have a letter for me all right."

And so she wrote, a loving, womanly letter, telling in her own sweet way
all her faith and the ugly uncertainty that was growing up against it.

"But I know you, Phil, and I know you are all my own." So she ended the
letter, and in the purple twilight she hastened up to the cliff and
found her way down to our old shaded corner under the rock. There was no
letter awaiting her. She held her own a minute and then she thrust it
in.

"I'll do anything for Phil," she murmured softly. "I c