The two inside the buggy were rather silent for a while. Diana was watching the light rainfall. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and the atmosphere became wonderfully translucent. Great branches were strewn by the way, and a tall pine, cleft from tip to root, showed the course of a thunderbolt. The stream was so swollen that old Henk forded with cautious feet, and the water lapped above the carriage step. “Drowned out most of the young crops,” Dr. Cheyney remarked laconically. “What sort of a man is Caleb Trench?” Diana asked irrelevantly. Dr. Cheyney looked around at her with quizzical eyes. “A shopkeeper,” he replied. “I reckon that’s about as far as you got before to-day, wasn’t it?” She colored. “I suppose it was,” she admitted, and then added, “Not quite, doctor; I saw that he was odd.” The old man smiled. “Di,” he said, “when you were no higher than my knee you’d have been more truthful. You know, as well as I do, that the man is above the average; he’s keeping shop and reading law down at Judge Hollis’ office, and he’s trying to teach the backwoodsmen honest politics. Taken out a pretty large contract, eh?” Diana looked down at her fine strong hands lying crossed in her lap; her face was deeply thoughtful. “I suppose he’s bent on rising in politics,” she said, with a touch of scorn in her voice; “the typical self-made man.” “You didn’t happen to know that he was a gentleman,” Dr. Cheyney remarked dryly. She met his eye and smiled unwillingly. “I did,” she said; “I saw it--to-night.” “Oh, you did, did you?” The old man slapped Henk with the reins. “Well, what else did you see?” “Very little, I imagine,” she replied. “I suppose I thought he had ‘a story’; that’s the common thing, isn’t it?” “Maybe,” admitted the doctor, “but it isn’t so, as far as I know. Caleb Trench comes of good old stock in Pennsylvania. His father lost a fortune just before Caleb left college; the old man’s dead, and his wife, too. Trench has had to work and work hard. He couldn’t take his law course, and he’s never complained. He got together a little money and had to pay it all out for his sister; she was dying of some spinal trouble, and had to be nursed through a long illness and buried. Trench gave every cent; now he’s making a new start. Hollis likes him, so does Miss Sarah.” Diana smiled. “It’s something to please Miss Sarah.” “I never did,” said William Cheyney calmly; “she declares I tried to poison her last time she was laid up with sciatica. She’s taking patent medicines now, and when she’s at the last gasp she’ll send for me and lay the blame on my shoulders.” “It’s hard to be a doctor after all, isn’t it?” laughed Diana; then she leaned forward and caught the blossoming end of a vagrant dogwood and broke off the flowers as they passed. “Dr. Cheyney,” she went on, after a long moment, “I’ve wanted you to see father again; I don’t believe he’s well.”