Rose remained silent, although obviously disturbed by Donald's words; but, before she could voice her thoughts, another figure quietly joined the group--a tall, stooping man, clean shaven, and with an aesthetic countenance seemingly out of its natural environment. "Why, it's my minister man," cried Rose joyfully. "Wherever did you come from?" "My wanderings brought me close home, and I could not pass by without calling on my two good friends in Webb's Gap." "An' we air downright glad fer ter see ye, reverend," answered the host. "This hyar air the doctor man from the city, what leetle Rose hes told ye so much erbout." Donald already felt drawn to the strange divine, their common interest in the girl acting as a lode-stone, and he clasped his hand with friendly pressure. The other returned it less vigorously, but no less sincerely, and Donald experienced a peculiar mesmeric thrill which startled him a little. "Perhaps I should apologize," began Mr. Talmadge in a low voice, the timbre of which still retained the resonance of early culture. "I came on this happy scene--or at least to the corner of the house--while you were speaking of life in the city, and I could not very well help pausing and listening. "I know your feelings only too well, Dr. MacDonald. I was born, bred and worked in New York until my health became undermined by just such influences as you mentioned; and I was forced to run away, too, and seek the hills 'whence cometh my help.'" "And deep in your inner consciousness you don't regret the change, do you?" asked Donald. "No. Perhaps I am selfish--a shirker--and there are times when the old call to get back where I know that the need is greatest comes like a clarion. But for myself, the disaster--which once seemed like a curse--has turned out to be a blessing, as is so often the case. I have learned a great lesson, doctor." "What lesson?" queried Rose. "God's," responded the minister, quietly. "It may seem strange to you, my dear, but, although I was reared in a religious family, went through a great theological school, and was the rector of a city church for ten years, I never fully knew Him until I came here." "Why, Mr. Talmadge!" gasped the girl in astonishment, while Donald said bluntly, "Do you really believe that you know Him, now?" "I do. Not, of course, in all the fullness of His mysterious majesty, but as a friend whose ways are no longer hidden from my eyes." "Frankly, I wish I might say as much," said the doctor. "I, too, was brought up in a religious household, but small good it did me, for, when I became old enough to think for myself, the glaring errors and inconsistencies in my childhood belief became so apparent that I became hopeless of ever understanding the truth which might lie within that astonishing maze. I quit going to church long ago." "Doctors are generally regarded as an atheistic lot," smiled the minister. "That's slander. We may--in the aggregate--be agnostic.... I suppose that I am."