“Of course, he’s only her foster-father.  She likes him and she hates him.  He certainly couldn’t help her.”

“And you are sure there is no hope in Judith’s mother?”

“O she’s just broken, like a patient fool horse.  Good as gold, you know, but with about as much influence over Jude as a kitten.  Judith hasn’t any one to tie to, not any one.  Peter is all right but he jaws too much.  She hasn’t any one.”

“Doesn’t she care for you?”

“She says she’s fond of me.  Fond of me!  I’d rather she hated me.  I’d as soon have a dish of cold mush from a woman like Jude, as fondness.”

“And do you think I could influence Judith?”

“I don’t know.  But I want you to try.  And it isn’t all Judith with me.  I love Lost Chief.  I never want to live anywhere else.  And I’d like to see it the kind of a place my grandfather Douglas wanted it to be.  No, it honestly isn’t all for Judith, though she’s the beginning and the end of it.”

There was something almost affectionate in the preacher’s deep-set eyes as he watched Douglas.

“Do you realize, my boy, what you are asking?  When you bring a preacher into Lost Chief, you are going to rouse an antagonism against yourself that will astound you.  These people are of New England stock.  There is no more intelligent stock in America, nor stock that is more conceited, more narrow, more obstinate, nor more ruthless.  And the farther a New Englander gets from religion, the more brutal his virtues become.  If you take me into Lost Chief, you are going to start a depth of strife of which we cannot foresee the end.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Douglas.  He rested his chin on his palm and eyed the glowing stove thoughtfully.  “I guess you are right,” finally; “nothing makes Lost Chief folks so mad as to have some one hint they aren’t perfect.”  Then he chuckled.  “It’ll be a real man’s fight.  I wonder what Jude will say!  Are you afraid, Mr. Fowler?”

“Afraid?  Yes!  I’m not as young as I was once and I am not over-anxious for such a struggle.  But this thing isn’t in my hands.  If ever the Almighty showed Himself a directing force, He is showing it here.  This is what He ordained from the day you drove me out of the schoolhouse.  Do you remember what I said to you?”

“You quoted the Bible, I think.  I don’t remember what it was.”

“I said, ’Ye shall find no place to repent you, though ye seek for it with tears.’”

Douglas murmured the words over to himself.  His face worked a little.  “It’s true!  It’s the living truth!” he exclaimed unevenly.  “Not that I’ve got anything to repent—­” he hesitated.  “What is repentance?  What is life?  Where is God, if there is a God?  What does it all mean, anyhow?”

The preacher said slowly, “’There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will.’  That’s what it all means.  When shall you be ready for me, Douglas?”