"It is _his_ fault, Father," I would defend myself mutely. "We might have been content, even happy, in a friendly way, if it had not been for him." "It was not for Friendship alone that I gave you to him, Daughter," the answer would come, "but for something dearer, bigger, deeper. You were so young and so alien from the world. I had thought that the man to whom we both owe everything would be the one to help you through all that first difficult time: to teach you, finally, Life's loveliest lesson. And I had hoped, prayed even, that you would one day come to be to him what your Mother was to me.... There was not much time," the beloved voice went on, very sadly, "for me to make a decision. It was hard to feel I might have to leave you ... alone ... unsheltered.... How hard, you will never know ... unless some day you are called upon to leave a child of your own...." "Father!" I begged--"Please--" "If the mistake was mine," said the voice which still seemed to come from that unsmiling miniature, "I can only ask your forgiveness, Mavis. Even your Father, who loves you beyond all earthly things, was wrong to try and shape your destiny." "No--no--" I sobbed. I laid the minature on the table again. The voice in my heart had ceased to speak: There were only the pictured eyes, looking into mine from a little leather case. But for a long time, Father had talked to me so. I read between the lines of his letters and prayed that he should not read between the lying phrases of mine. Was it all lies? "I am happy," I told him again and again: and he, who knew me so well, was convinced, perhaps because, in a certain, curious sense, that much was true. Underneath bewilderment, misunderstanding, the pinpricks of pride, and the smart of old resentments, I _had_ been happy. It was as if I walked on a strange, new road, toward some unknown goal, some unguessed shelter. There were turnings in the path: dark places: uneven stretches: but always a bird sang, sweetly, in the distance,--the sun cleared the clouds and Adventure waited for me just around the corner. But lately, the ground had fallen away from under my very feet, and left me standing at the edge of an abyss, looking across a chasm of despair, to the far country I would never reach.... Mercedes knocked at my door, and came in. "You've been away so long," she said, reproachfully. "Wright is going to mass with me, in the Church at Ceube. Won't you come too, Mavis?" It's Sunday then, I thought, wondering how the days had passed, nameless and unheeded by me--every one bringing me nearer-- "Sure you want me?" I asked, and at her assurance, I got my hat and set out with her and Wright in the car. Bill drove us down: he didn't come in, but went about other business after he had left us at the little church, solidly built of time and weather stained adobe, red-roofed, and squatly towered.