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“I–I am all right now. I haven’t been feeling well of late.”

“Guess you didn’t do yourself any good going out into that freezing water and dragging me in.”

“I shall thank God every day of my life that I did do it,” said Alan gravely, new light in his eyes, as Emily entered the room. “Miss Oliver, when will the Captain and Lynde be back?”

“They said they would be home by four.”

She looked at Alan curiously.

“I will go and meet her,” he said quickly.

He came upon Lynde, sitting on a grey boulder under the shadow of an overhanging fir coppice, with her dogs beside her.

She turned her head indifferently as Alan’s footsteps sounded on the pebbles, and then stood slowly up.

“Are you looking for me?” she asked.

“I have some news for you, Lynde,” Alan said.

“Has he–has he come to himself?” she whispered.

“Yes, he has come to himself. Lynde, he is not Frank Harmon–he is his twin brother. He says Frank Harmon was killed three years ago in the China seas.”

For a moment Lynde’s great grey eyes stared into Alan’s, questioning. Then, as the truth seized on her comprehension, she sat down on the boulder and put her hands over her face without a word. Alan walked down to the water’s edge to give her time to recover herself. When he came back he took her hands and said quietly, “Lynde, do you realize what this means for us–for us? You are free–free to love me–to be my wife.”

Lynde shook her head.

“Oh, that can’t be. I am not fit to be your wife.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, dear,” he smiled.

“It isn’t nonsense. You are a minister and it would ruin you to marry a girl like me. Think what the Rexton people would say of it.”

“Rexton isn’t the world, dearest. Last week I had a letter from home asking me to go to a church there. I did not think of accepting then–now I will go–we will both go–and a new life will begin for you, clear of the shadows of the old.”

“That isn’t possible. No, Alan, listen–I love you too well to do you the wrong of marrying you. It would injure you. There is Father. I love him and he has always been very kind to me. But–but–there’s something wrong–you know it–some crime in his past–“

“The only man who knew that is dead.”

“We do not know that he was the only man. I am the daughter of a criminal and I am no fit wife for Alan Douglas. No, Alan, don’t plead, please. I won’t think differently–I never can.”

There was a ring of finality in her tone that struck dismay to Alan’s heart. He prepared to entreat and argue, but before he could utter a word, the boughs behind them parted and Captain Anthony stepped down from the bank.

“I’ve been listening,” he announced coolly, “and I think it high time I took a share in the conversation. You seem to have run up against a snag, Mr. Douglas. You say Frank Harmon is dead. That’s good riddance if it’s true. Is it true?”

“His brother declares it is.”

“Well, then, I’ll help you all I can. I like you, Mr. Douglas, and I happen to be fond of Lynde, too–though you mayn’t believe it. I’m fond of her for her mother’s sake and I’d like to see her happy. I didn’t want to give her to Harmon that time three years ago but I couldn’t help myself. He had the upper hand, curse him. It wasn’t for my own sake, though–it was for my wife’s. However, that’s all over and done with and I’ll do the best I can to atone for it. So you won’t marry your minister because your father was not a good man, Lynde? Well, I don’t suppose he was a very good man–a man who makes his wife’s life a hell, even in a refined way, isn’t exactly a saint, to my way of thinking. But that’s the worst that could be said of him and it doesn’t entail any indelible disgrace on his family, I suppose. I am not your father, Lynde.”