There was, too, an alteration in Lynde's manner which cruelly helped to
pique her curiosity. His frank, half satirical, but wholly amiable way--
an armor that had hitherto rendered him invulnerable to Miss Mildred's
coquettish shafts--was wanting; he was less ready to laugh than
formerly, and sometimes in the midst of company he fell into absent-
minded moods. Instead of being the instigator and leader of picnics up
the river, he frequently pleaded bank duties as an excuse for not
joining such parties. "He is not at all as nice as he used to be," was
Miss Mildred's mental summing up of Lynde a fortnight after his return.

He was, in fact, unaccountably depressed by his adventure in the hill
country; he could not get it out of his mind. The recollection of
details which he had not especially remarked at the time came to him in
the midst of his work at the bank. Sometimes when he turned off the gas
at night, or just as he was falling asleep, the sharp, attenuated figure
of the ship-builder limned itself against the blackness of the chamber,
or the old gentleman's vacuous countenance in its frame of silver hair
peered in through the hangings of the bed. But more frequently it was
the young girl's face that haunted Lynde. He saw her as she came up the
sunny road, swinging the flower in her hand, and looking like one of Fra
Angelico's seraphs or some saint out of an illuminated mediaeval missal;
then he saw her seated on the horse, helpless and piteous with the rude,
staring men about her. If he dreamed, it was of her drawing herself up
haughtily and saying, "I am the Queen of Sheba." On two or three nights,
when he had not been dreaming, he was startled out of his slumber by a
voice whispering close to his ear: "I know you, too, very well. You are
my husband."

Mr. Bowlsby and his daughter were the only persons in Rivermouth to whom
Lynde could have told the story of his journey. He decided not to