“I said ‘Yes,’ with the lazy sort of languor born of the indolence of the hour.

“‘Have you energy enough for a walk to the sea-shore?’ he asked.

“It had been my wish that very day.  I had not been there since Mary’s illness.  I hesitated in giving an answer.  Abraham would be home at sunset.

“‘Don’t go, if it is only to please me,’ he said.

“‘I am going to please myself,’ I answered; ’only I wish to be at home on Abraham’s coming.’

“That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him.  One month more, and he should leave it.  He put into words the memory of that first look across the dead.  He talked to me, until the sea lost its sunlight sheen,—­until I no longer heard its beat of incoming tide,—­until I forgot the hour for Abraham’s coming.  It was he who reminded me of it.  Once more we paced the sands, already sown with our many footsteps, that the advancing waters would soon overwhelm.  After that we went village-ward.  The gloaming had come down when we reached home.

“‘Abraham must have been an hour here,’ I thought, as alone I went in.

“He met me in the hall.

“‘Where have you been, Lettie?’ was his greeting.

“‘On the sands.’

“‘Not alone?’

“‘No, Abraham; Bernard McKey has been with me.’

“‘By what right?’ he demanded, with that mighty power of voice that is laid up within him for especial occasions.

“’By the right that I gave him, by the right that is his to walk with me,’ I said; for I grew defiant, and felt a renewal of strength, enough to tell Abraham the truth.

“Don’t start so, Anemone,” she said to me.  “You think defiance unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my brother had no right to question me.

“But one word came from his lips, as he confronted me there, with folded arms; it was,—­

“‘When?’

“‘This very afternoon, Abraham.’

“Mother came out at the moment.  She saw the cloud on Abraham’s brow even in the dim light.  She asked, ‘What is it?’ and Abraham answered us both at the same time.

“He had been to the home of Bernard McKey.  He proved to my mother’s utmost satisfaction that her daughter had no right to care for one like Bernard McKey.  He did not know the right that came on that night almost two years before.  He saw that his proofs were idle to me; but he said ‘he had another, one that I would accept, for I was an Axtell.’

“’Yes, Abraham, I am an Axtell, and I shall prove my right to the name, come what will’; and without waiting to hear more, I glided into the darkness up-stairs.