It was a miserable week altogether to Alexina. The days dragged through to their nights, and the nights to morning. She had never known so hateful a time. She hated the grove, where thousands of oranges, gathered into piles, lay rotting, and where the smiling trees, wherever their buds had escaped injury, were putting out scattered blooms; she hated the lake, and the Cherokee roses in bloom, she hated the crepe myrtles and the camelias in the yard. To walk meant wading through sand; there was nothing in town to make the drive worth while. The shame, the sting was in everything that was beautiful. That she should care! Mr. Jonas and Mr. Henderson drove out one evening, Mr. Jonas to talk over matters with the Captain. Alexina wandered off by herself. Presently she heard Mrs. Leroy calling softly. "It's your mother," she told Alexina in a whisper, as the girl came back to the house. "I don't believe Mr. Henderson is good for her." Molly was talking to Mr. Jonas rapidly, eagerly, like one defending self, as Alexina reached them. Mr. Henderson was regarding her out of sombre eyes. "It's not that I think I'm sick," Molly was saying, "like he says I am. I'm better, really, much better, only while he was talking about, about things--it's a dreadful religion his; I'd rather be without any, like Jean, than have one like his--I remembered how Father Bonot used to pull the oranges for me I couldn't reach. Here's Malise come back. Malise, let's not go to The Bay after all; I'm tired; let's go to Cannes Brulée. He's there, Father Bonot is, they told me in Washington. He's an old, old man. Let's go back home there." "Why, yes," said the girl, "if you want, we'll go." "You were a little baby at Cannes Brulée--yes," animatedly, "that's what we'll do. We'll go home to Father Bonot, Malise." At the touch of Mr. Jonas the minister started. His face was grey. Then he got up and followed the other. On the way in to Aden in the buckboard he hardly spoke until the hotel was reached. Mr. Jonas stopped the mare before the plank sidewalk. The minister came to himself as out of chaos. "My God," he said. Mr. Jonas turned the wheel. "Only yours?" he rejoined briskly. The minister, on the sidewalk now, looked up at him dazedly. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "Not yet," returned Mr. Jonas, with cheerful reassurance; "you will, you will, though." * * * * * So again Alexina made plans. They would go on the eighth as before, she and Celeste and Molly, but they would go to Cannes Brulée. Supper was over and the Captain sat smoking in his cane chair on the gallery. If King was coming, it would be to-night; the train from the South came in at seven, and he knew that they were going.