"You cannot make me tell stories or talk nonsense because you say it is religious," replied Leam, impervious and unconvinced. "I like better to tell the truth and call things by their right names." "And you cannot feel that we are little children walking in the dark and that we must accept by faith?" said Alick. She shook her head, then answered with a certain tone of triumph in her voice, "Well, yes, it is the dark: so let it be the dark, and do not pretend you understand when you do not. Do not say God made you ill in one breath, and in another that He is kind. It is silly." "Now, my boy, don't excite yourself," said Mrs. Corfield, bustling into the room and noting how the thin cheek had flushed and how bright and feverish the hollow eyes of her invalid were looking. "You know the doctor says you are not to be excited or tired. It is the worst thing in the world for you." "I am neither, mother: don't alarm yourself," he answered; "but I must have a little talk with Leam. I have not seen her for so long. How long is it, mother?" "Well, my dear, you have been ill for over ten weeks," she said as she went to the window with a sudden gasp. "Ten weeks gone out of my life!" he replied. "We have all been sorry," said Leam a little vaguely. His eyes grew moist. He was weak and easily moved. "Were you very sorry?" he asked. "Very," she answered, for her quite warmly. "Then you did not want me to die?" He said this with a yearning look, raising himself again on his elbow to meet her eyes more straightly. "Want you to die?" she repeated in astonishment. "Why should I want you to die? I want you to get well and live." He took her hand again. "God bless you!" he said, and turned his face to the pillow to conceal that he was weeping. Again that gray look of remembrance, passed over her face. She knew now what he had meant. "No," she said slowly, "I do not want you to die. You are good, and would harm no one." After this visit Leam saw Alick whenever she called at the house, which, however, was not so often as heretofore, and week by week became still more seldom. Something was growing up in her heart against him that made his presence a discomfort. It was not fear nor moral dislike, but it was a personal distaste that threatened to become unconquerable. She hated to be with him; hated to see his face looking at her with such yearning tenderness as abashed her somehow and made her lower her eyes; hated his endeavors to convert her to an orthodox acceptance of mysteries she could not understand and of explanations she could not believe; hated his sadness, hated his joy: she only wished that he would go away and leave her alone. What did he mean? What did he want? He was changing from the blushing, awkward, subservient dog of his early youth, and from the still subservient if also more argumentative pastor of these later days alike, and she did not like the new Alick who was gradually creeping into the place of the old.