"Oh yes--he's done with all that now." "Then why on earth should _we_ go on--" "We're not dead, my dear." "You don't mean--" She looked at him with horror-filled eyes. "What's the matter?" "You--" But she couldn't bring the awful doubt to birth. That any one in her own range of experience should be heard to hint that the dead were done with thinking! Not that a mythical person in a book, but some one she knew, should be found saying calmly that he had abandoned hope of the life to come! "My father," she whispered, coming a trace nearer, "did he ever say he didn't believe in immortality? No! no! he couldn't. But did he ever tell you he wasn't _sure_?" "How can any one be sure?" "How can you bear to live if you're not sure?" she cried. He stared at her in astonishment, forgetting Mrs. Gano's saying, "The one Christian tenet I am satisfied Val holds is the doctrine of the Resurrection." "I thought you said your father talked quite freely to you." The girl grasped the slender branches of the elder-bush. "Then there _are_ people, and I know them, who don't believe in immortality." The world seemed to swim. As she lifted up her dazed eyes, she saw a green-clad figure lingering disconsolately along the brow of the hill. Another instant Julia and she had recognized each other. "Not to believe in immortality!" she repeated, as though she had never heard of the idea before. "Then, for such people it's all this life--_this_ life. They can't afford to miss anything here; it's their only chance. Do you hear, cousin Ethan? This life--this life may be all." On an uncontrollable impulse he seized her hand to draw her down beside him. "Julia's coming," said Val, hurriedly, and advanced to meet her friend. "Oh, here you are!" called out the new-comer. "I didn't get to church, after all. And I've a message from my father," she said to Ethan, as he came forward. "He wants you to come to supper to-night to meet Senator Green." When Val and Ethan got home late for dinner, they were met in the hall by Mrs. Gano. "Lo! she comes, 'with high looks like the King of Assyria,'" Ethan quoted. Mrs. Gano levelled an unmistakably cold stare at the culprits. "Emmeline tells me you were not in church." "No; we were late," said Ethan. When Val had run up-stairs to take off her things: "You must forgive me this once," he added, speaking low, "for I'm going away to-morrow." He had no word alone with his cousin till the next morning. Nothing further had been said about his going, but his trunk was packed and the carriage ordered. He found Val sitting alone in the parlor, in a corner of the sofa by the window. "What are you doing here?" he said, shutting the door. "Just thinking." "Don't do that, such a bad habit." "Oh, I'm just trying to get accustomed to realizing there are people who believe"--she spread out her hands and let them fall--"this is all." "Don't bother about such people," he said, sitting down.