"You look it, Philip." He took my hand affectionately. "You are the very image of clean, strong manhood. Let not your heart be troubled." I returned his hand-clasp and went my way. However much courage it may take to push forward to victory or death on the battle field, not the least of heroism does it sometimes require to walk bravely toward the deepening gloom of an impending ill. I have followed both paths and I know what each one demands. At our doorway, waiting to welcome me, stood Rachel Melrose, smiling, sure, and effusively demonstrative in her friendship. She must have followed me on the next stage out of Topeka. Behind her stood Candace Baronet, the only woman I have ever known who never in all my life doubted me nor misunderstood me. Somehow the sunset was colorless to me that night, and all the rippling waves of wide West Prairie were shorn of their glory. CHAPTER XV ROCKPORT AND "ROCKPORT" Glitters the dew, and shines the river, Up comes the lily and dries her bell; But two are walking apart forever, And wave their hands in a mute farewell. --JEAN INGELOW. The Melrose family was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the best things of life never found their way. She took everything in Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem that Kansas should give its best to her; and withal she was a woman who delighted in conquest. Her arrival in Springvale made a topic that was soon on everybody's tongue. In the afternoon of the day following her coming, when I went to my father's office before starting out to the stone cabin, I found Marjie there. I had not seen her since the party, and I went straight to her chair. "Well, little girl, it's ten thousand years since I saw you last," I spoke in a low voice. My father was searching for some papers in his cabinet, and his back was toward us. "Why didn't I get a letter, dearie?" She looked up with eyes whose brown depths were full of pain and sorrow, but with an expression I had never seen on her face before, a kind of impenetrable coldness. It cut me like a sword-thrust, and I bent over her. "Oh, Marjie, my Marjie, what is wrong?" "Here is that paper at last," my father said before he turned around. Even as he spoke, Rachel Melrose swept into the room. "Why, Philip, I missed you after all. I didn't mean to keep you waiting, but I can never get accustomed to your Western hurry." She was very handsome and graceful, and always at ease with me, save in our interviews alone. "I didn't know you were coming," I said frankly; "but I want you to meet Miss Whately. This is the young lady I have told you about."