"'They say it was a stolen tide--the Lord who sent it, He knows all!' But why--why--why--did it wash in here? What does it mean? What have we done--and what--what has she done?" The little Doctor looked up into the strong face of his wife rather helplessly, then the time spirit that is after all our sanity--touched them, and they smiled. "Perhaps, Jim," the smile broke into something almost like a laugh, "father said something like that to mother the day I stood among the magnolias trying to pluck courage with the flowers to tell him that I was going with you!" They succeeded in raising a miserable little laugh, and he squeezed her hand. The girl moved toward the house. The father turned and put on his hat as he went to meet her. She was a hesitant, self-conscious girl in pink, who stopped her father as he toddled down the front steps with his medicine case, and she put her hand upon him, saying: "Father," she paused, looking eagerly at him, then continued, "there's the loveliest yellow flag over here." The father smiled, put his arm about the girl and piped: "So the pink rosebud will take us to the yellow flag!" They walked across the garden to the flower and she exclaimed: "Oh, father--isn't it lovely!" The father looked tenderly into her gray eyes, patted her on the shoulder and with his arm still about her, he led her to a seat under the lilacs before the yellow flower. He looked from the flower to her face and then kissed her as he whispered: "Oh my dear, my dear." She threw her arms about him and buried her face, all flushed, upon his shoulder. He felt her quiver under the pressure of his arm and before she could look at him, she spoke: "Oh, father! Father! You--you won't--you won't blame--" Then she lifted up her face to his and cried passionately: "But all the world could not stop it now--not now! But, oh, father, I want you with me," and she shook his arm. "You must understand. You must see Tom as I see him, father." She looked the question of her soul in an anxious, searching glance. Her father reached for one of her hands and patted it. He gazed downward at the yellow iris, but did not see it. "Yes, dear, I know--I understand." "I was sure that you would know without my spelling it all out to you. But, oh, father," she cried, "I don't want you and mother to feel as you do about Tom, for you are wrong. You are all--all wrong!"