In civilian's dress, and with only his sea-bronzed face and the polished air of a pivot gun to tell that he was of the navy, Lieutenant Godfrey Winslow was slowly crossing the rural way with Ruth Byington at his side. He had the look of, say, twenty-eight, and she was some four years his junior. From her father's front gate they were passing toward the large grove garden of the young man's own home, on the side next the hill and the sunset. On the front porch, where the two had just left him, sat the war-crippled father of the girl, taking pride in the placidity of the face she once or twice turned to him in profile, and in the buoyancy of her movements and pose. His fond, unspoken thought went after her, that she was hiding some care again,--her old, sweet trick, and her mother's before her. He looked on to Godfrey. "There's endurance," he thought again. "You ought to have taken him long ago, my good girl, if you want him at all." And here his reflections faded into the unworded belief that she would have done so but for his, her own father's, being in the way. The pair stopped and turned half about to enjoy the green-arched vista of the street, and Godfrey said, in a tone that left his companion no room to overlook its personal intent, "How often, in my long absences, I see this spot!" "You wouldn't dare confess you didn't," was her blithe reply. "Oh yes, I should. I've tried not to see it, many a time." "Why, Godfrey Winslow!" she laughed. "That was very wrong!" "It was very useless," said the wanderer, "for there was always the same one girl in the midst of the picture; and that's the sort a man can never shut out, you know. I don't try to shut it out any more, Ruth." The girl spoke more softly. "I wish I could know where Leonard is," she mused aloud. "Did you hear me, Ruth? I say I don't try any more, now." "Well, that's right! I wonder where that brother of mine is?" The baffled lover had to call up his patience. "Well, that's right, too," he laughed; "and I wonder where that brother of mine is? I wonder if they're together?" They moved on, but at the stately entrance of the Winslow garden they paused again. The girl gave her companion a look of distress, and the young man's brow darkened. "Say it," he said. "I see what it is." "You speak of Arthur"--she began. "Well?" "What did you make out of his sermon this morning?" "Why, Ruth, I--What did you make out of it?" "I made out that the poor boy is very, very unhappy." "Did you? Well, he is; and in a certain way I'm to blame for it." The girl's smile was tender. "Was there ever anything the matter with Arthur, and you didn't think you were in some way to blame for it?" "Oh, now, don't confuse me with Leonard. Anyhow, I'm to blame this time! Has Isabel told you anything, Ruth?" "Yes, Isabel has told me!" "Told you they are engaged?" "Told me they are engaged!"