So that as he sat there brooding, it was perhaps a little unfortunate
that the daughter of a man whom he was beginning to regard as a
forthright enemy should have chosen to come to him, tripping soundlessly
over the moss.

He did not hear Betty Gower until she was beside him. Her foot clicked
on a stone and he looked up. Betty was all in white, a glow in her
cheeks and in her eyes, bareheaded, her reddish-brown hair shining in a
smooth roll above her ears.

"I hear you have lost your father," she said simply. "I'm awfully
sorry."

Some peculiar quality of sympathy in her tone touched MacRae deeply. His
eyes shifted for a moment to the uneasy sea. The lump in his throat
troubled him again. Then he faced her again.

"Thanks," he said slowly. "I dare say you mean it, although I don't know
why you should. But I'd rather not talk about that. It's done."

"I suppose that's the best way," she agreed, although she gave him a
doubtful sort of glance, as if she scarcely knew how to take part of
what he said. "Isn't it lovely after the storm? Pretty much all the
civilized world must feel a sort of brightness and sunshine to-day, I
imagine."

"Why?" he asked. It seemed to him a most uncalled-for optimism.

"Why, haven't you heard that the war is over?" she smiled. "Surely some