"If you'll only study it a while I promise that it will interest you--not in its formalisms, not in its petty rituals and observances, nor in its endless nomenclature, nor its orthodoxy--but just as you discover it for yourself in the histories of men and women--of saint and sinner--and, above all, in the matchless life of Him who understood them all. "_Non tu corpus eras sine pectore!_" Lying there, remembering his letter almost word for word, and where it now lay among printed pages incomprehensible to her except by the mechanical processes of formal faith and superficial observance, she wondered how much that, and the scarcely scanned printed page, might have altered her views of life. Molly kissed her again and went away downstairs. When she was dressed in her habit she went out to the lawn's edge where Langly and the horses had already gathered: he put her up, and they cantered away down the wooded road that led to South Linden. After their first gallop they slowed to a walk on the farther hill slope, chatting of inconsequential things; and it seemed to her that he was in unusually good spirits--almost gay for him--and his short dry laugh rang out once or twice, which was more than she had heard from him in a week. From moment to moment she glanced sideways at him, curiously inspecting the sleek-headed symmetry of the man, noticing, as always, his perfectly groomed figure, his narrow head and the well-cut lines of the face and jaw. Once she had seen him--the very first time she had ever met him at Miami--eating a broiled lobster. And somehow his healthy appetite, the clean incision of his sun-bronzed jaw and the working muscles, chewing and swallowing, fascinated her; and she never saw him but she thought of him eating vigorously aboard the _Yulan_. "Langly," she said, "is it going to be disagreeable for you when Mrs. Ledwith returns to South Linden?" He looked at her leisurely, eyes, as always, slightly protruding: "Why?" "The newspapers." "Probably," he said. "Then--what are you going to do about it?" "About what?" "The papers." "Nothing." "Or--about Mrs. Ledwith?" "Be civil if I see her." "Of course," she said, reddening. "I was wondering whether gossip might be nipped in the bud if you left before she arrives and remained away until she leaves." His prominent eyes were searching her features all the while she was speaking; now they wandered restlessly over the landscape. "It's my fashion," he said, "to face things as they come." "If you don't mind I'd rather have you go," she said. "Where?" "Anywhere you care to." He said: "I have told you a thousand times that the thing to do is to take Molly Wycherly 'board the _Yulan_, and----" "I do not care to do it until our engagement is announced." "Very well," he said, swinging around in his saddle, "I'll announce it to-day and we'll go aboard this evening and clear out." "Wh-what!" she faltered.