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The door opened suddenly and the very Rachel of whom he was dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance.

“Father,” she cried, brokenly, and her father’s eager arms closed around her.

Back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the wedding. There were jests and laughter and friendly greeting. The bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently emerged to confront Mrs. Spencer on the landing.

“I want to see Rachel before we go down,” he said, blushing.

Mrs. Spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table which was already laden with gifts, opening the door of Rachel’s room, and called her. There was no reply; the room was dark and still. In sudden alarm, Isabella Spencer snatched the lamp from the hall table and held it up. The little white room was empty. No blushing, white-clad bride tenanted it. But David Spencer’s letter was lying on the stand. She caught it up and read it.

“Rachel is gone,” she gasped. A flash of intuition had revealed to her where and why the girl had gone.

“Gone!” echoed Frank, his face blanching. His pallid dismay recalled Mrs. Spencer to herself. She gave a bitter, ugly little laugh.

“Oh, you needn’t look so scared, Frank. She hasn’t run away from you. Hush; come in here–shut the door. Nobody must know of this. Nice gossip it would make! That little fool has gone to the Cove to see her–her father. I know she has. It’s just like what she would do. He sent her those presents–look–and this letter. Read it. She has gone to coax him to come and see her married. She was crazy about it. And the minister is here and it is half-past seven. She’ll ruin her dress and shoes in the dust and dew. And what if some one has seen her! Was there ever such a little fool?”

Frank’s presence of mind had returned to him. He knew all about Rachel and her father. She had told him everything.

“I’ll go after her,” he said gently. “Get me my hat and coat. I’ll slip down the back stairs and over to the Cove.”

“You must get out of the pantry window, then,” said Mrs. Spencer firmly, mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic fashion. “The kitchen is full of women. I won’t have this known and talked about if it can possibly be helped.”

The bridegroom, wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it was well to yield to women in little things, crawled obediently out of the pantry window and darted through the birch wood. Mrs. Spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared.

So Rachel had gone to her father! Like had broken the fetters of years and fled to like.

“It isn’t much use fighting against nature, I guess,” she thought grimly. “I’m beat. He must have thought something of her, after all, when he sent her that teapot and letter. And what does he mean about the ‘day they had such a good time’? Well, it just means that she’s been to see him before, sometime, I suppose, and kept me in ignorance of it all.”

Mrs. Spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud.

“If only she’ll come quietly back with Frank in time to prevent gossip I’ll forgive her,” she said, as she turned to the kitchen.

Rachel was sitting on her father’s knee, with both her white arms around his neck, when Frank came in. She sprang up, her face flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears. Frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely.