he arose and passed out into the night.

"I can't make that feller out," grumbled Buck, uncomfortably.

Easter Sunday was bright and clear, following a fortnight of cold,
penetrating winds and rain. The sun smiled, but it was a cold smile that
mocked rather than cheered. The sky was the colour of thin, transparent
ice; the vast white dome was unspotted by a single cloud; the rose tints
of early morn, frightened away at birth by the chill, unfeeling glare,
took with them every promise of tenderness that dawned with the new day.
But, though the sky was hard, the air was soft; the tang of the salt-sea
spice lay over everything.

Percival had no active part in the exercises arranged by Ruth. The song
service was held in the open. A platform had been erected in front
of the "tabernacle" (the meeting-house on occasion) for the choir and
musicians. There were no seats for the congregation. Every one stood,
bareheaded, in a wide semi-circle facing the platform. The "boss" took
his place inconspicuously among those who formed the outer fringe of the
assemblage. His gaze seldom left the face of the girl he loved. Once her
eyes met his. She was on the platform discussing arrangements with the
two clergymen when her roving, unsettled gaze chanced to fall upon him.
For many seconds she stared at him fixedly,--so fixedly, in fact, that
Father Francisco, after a moment, shot a look in the same direction.
Even from his far-off post, Percival saw the colour mount to her cheeks
as she hastily turned away to resume the conversation that had been so
incontinently broken off. She was bare-headed. He had been watching the
sun at play among the coils of her soft, dark hair,--a glint here as of
bronze, a gleam there as of gold, ever changing under the caresses of
that flaming lover a hundred million miles away.

The affable Mr. Nicklestick was standing beside Percival, carrying on a
more or less one-sided conversation.

"You see, it's this way," he was saying, contriving to reduce his
far-reaching voice to a moderate undertone; "I'm not in the habit of
attending Easter services. I'm not opposed to them, believe me, A.
A.,--not in the slightest. Now at home in New York, I make it a habit to
walk from the Metropolitan Museum down to the Waldorf-Astoria regularly
every Easter. Between eleven and twelve-thirty. You get them going into
certain churches and you get them coming out of others, don't you see?
Oh, vat would I give to be on Fif' Ave