Lydia saw a good deal of Billy during the summer. He never spoke of the accident to her at the Celebration, except to inquire about her bruises which troubled her for a week or so. Lydia wondered if he was ashamed of his wild flame of anger and his tears. She herself never thought of the episode without a thrill, as if she had been close for once to the primal impulses of life. Margery Marshall and Elviry went to Atlantic City and Newport this summer. John Levine was sure to take supper at the cottage once or twice a week, but he was very busy with his political work and with the enormous sales of mixed-breed lands to the whites. It was just before college opened that Amos announced that he was going to buy the one hundred and twenty acres John had set aside for him. "How are you going to pay for it?" Lydia asked. "Don't you worry, I'll tend to that," replied Amos. Levine was taking supper with them. "Better tell her all about it, Amos," he said. "You know Lydia is our partner." "Well, she'll just worry," warned Amos. "John's going to hold it for me, till I can get the pine cut off. That'll pay for the land." "How much did you pay for it, Mr. Levine?" asked Lydia. Levine grinned. "I forget!" Lydia's gaze was still the round, pellucid gaze of her childhood. She sat now with her chin cupped in her palm, her blue eyes on Levine. To the surprise of both the men, however, she said nothing. After the supper dishes were washed, and Amos was attending to the chickens, Lydia came slowly out to the front steps where Levine was sitting. He reached up and catching her hand pulled her down beside him on the topmost step. She leaned her head against his arm and they sat in silence, Lydia with her eyes on the dim outline of the pine by the gate. "Lydia," said John, finally, "how does the Great Search go on? We haven't reported for a long time." "I don't think I make much headway," replied Lydia. "The older I grow, the less I understand men and I've always felt as if, if there was a God, He was a man." "You mean male, rather than female," agreed John. "Lydia, dear, I wish you did have faith." "But do you believe, yourself?" urged Lydia. "Yes, I know that the soul can't die," said the man, quietly. "And the thing that makes me surest is the feeling I have for you, I know that I'll have another chance." "What do you mean?" asked Lydia wonderingly. "_That_, you'll never know," he replied. "Well, I know that you're a dear," said the young girl, unexpectedly, "no matter how you get your Indian lands. And I love you to death." She patted his cheek caressingly, and John Levine smiled sadly to himself in the darkness. CHAPTER XIV THE HARVARD INSTRUCTOR "The saddest things that I have seen are the burned pine woods and the diseased Indians."--_The Murmuring Pine_.