"There," exclaimed Annie, in the deepest distress; "because of this little thing you fall back into your old scepticism." "This 'little thing' is death to me," he said, in a hard, bitter tone. "Oh no, I'm not at all sceptical. The 'argument from design,' the nature of the result, are both too clear. I'm simply being dealt with according to law. Though perfectly sincere, you were entirely too lenient that Sunday evening when I told you what I was. My conscience was right after all. I only wish that I had fallen from yonder roof the other night. I might then have made my exit decently." "Mr. Gregory, you shock me," she said, almost sternly. "You have no right to insult my faith in a merciful God by such words, and your believing Him cruel and vindictive on this one bit of your experience is the sheerest egotism. It is the essence of selfishness to think everything wrong when one does not have one's own way." He only bowed his answer, then stepped out to the point of the hill, and took a long, lingering look at the valley and his old home, sighed deeply, turned, and said to her, quietly, "Perhaps it is time for you to return to your father." CHAPTER XXVIII WHAT A LOVER COULD DO Without a word they descended the hill. Gregory was very pale, and this, with a certain firmness about his mouth, was the only indication of feeling on his part. Otherwise, he was the same finished man of the world that he had appeared when he came. Annie's face grew more and more troubled with every glance at him. "He is hardening into stone," she thought; and she was already reproaching herself for speaking so harshly. "I might have known," she thought, "that his rash, bitter words were only incoherent cries of pain and disappointment." He perplexed her still more by saying at the foot of the hill, in his old light tone, "See, Miss Walton, our 'well-meaning friend' has not been here to put up the bars, and we can take the shorter way through the orchard. I would like to see them picking apples once more. By the way, you must say good-by for me to your old neighbor, and tell him that out of respect for his first honest greeting, I'm going to fill his pipe for the winter." But Annie's heart was too full to answer. "How familiar these mossy-trunked trees are!" he continued, determined that there should be no awkward pauses, no traces to the eyes of others of what had occurred. "How often I've picked apples from this one and that one--indeed from all! Good-by, old friends." "Do you never expect to come back to these 'old friends,' and others that would be friends again?" she asked, in low, trembling tones. "Mr. Gregory, you are cruel. You are saying good-by as if it were a very ordinary matter."