But it seemed as if the whole world had changed and gone awry when we sat down to breakfast the next morning. Adah was polite to me, but she was cool and distant. She no longer addressed me in the Friendly tongue. It was "you" now. I had ceased to be one of them, in her estimation. Her father and mother looked grave and worried, but they were as kind and cordial to me as ever. Reuben and the little girls were evidently mystified by the great change in the social atmosphere, but were too inexperienced to understand it. I was pained by Adah's manner, but did not let it trouble me, feeling assured that as she thought the past over she would do me justice, and that our relations would become substantially those of a brother and sister. But I was puzzled and alarmed beyond measure by Miss Warren's manner and appearance, and my feelings alternated between the deepest sympathy and the strongest fear. She looked as if she had grown old in the night, and was haggard from sleeplessness. Her deep eyes had sunken deeper than ever, and the lines under them were dark indeed, but her white face was full of a cold scorn, and she held herself aloof from us all. She looked again as if capable of any blind, desperate self-sacrifice. Simple, honest Mr. Yocomb was sorely perplexed, but his wife's face was grave and inscrutable. If I had only gone quietly away and left the whole problem to her, how much better it would have been! I tried to speak to Miss Warren in a pleasant, natural way; her answers were brief and polite, but nothing more. Before the meal was over she excused herself and returned to her room. I felt almost indignant. What had I--most of all, what had her kind, true friends, Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb--done to warrant that cold, half--scornful face? Her coming to breakfast was but a form, and she clearly wished to leave us at the earliest possible moment. Adah smiled satirically as she passed out, and the expression did not become her fair face. I strode out to the arbor in the garden and stared moodily at the floor, I know not how long, for I was greatly mystified and baffled, and my very soul was consumed with anxiety. "She shall listen to reason," I muttered again and again. "This question must be settled in accordance with truth--the simple, natural truth--and nothing else. She's mine, and nothing shall separate us--not even her perverse will and conscience;" and so the heavy hours passed in deep perturbation.