The young rector answered quietly:  “As I said before, Mr. Litterny, you have been most generous.  We are grateful more than I know how to say.”  His manner was very winning, and the older man’s kind face brightened.

“The greatest luxury which money brings is to give it away.  St. John’s owes its thanks not to me, but to you, Mr. North.  I have meant for some time to put into words my appreciation of your work there.  In two years you have infused more life and earnestness into that sleepy parish than I thought possible.  You’ve waked them up, put energy into them, and got it out of them.  You’ve done wonders.  It’s right you should know that people think this of you, and that your work is valued.”

“I am glad,” Norman North said, and the restraint of the words carried more than a speech.

Mr. Litterny went on:  “But there’s such a thing as overdoing, young man, and you’re shaving the edge of it.  You’re looking ill—­poor color—­thin as a rail.  You need a rest.”

“I think I’ll go to Bermuda.  My senior warden was there last year, and he says it’s a wonderful little place—­full of flowers and tennis and sailing, and blue sea and nice people.”  He stood up suddenly and broadened his broad shoulders.  “I love the south,” he said.  “And I love out-of-doors and using my muscles.  It’s good to think of whole days with no responsibility, and with exercise till my arms and legs ache.  I get little exercise, and I miss it.  I was on the track team at Yale, you see, and rather strong at tennis.”

Mr. Litterny smiled, and his smile was full of sympathy.  “We try to make a stained-glass saint out of you,” he said, “and all the time you’re a human youngster with a human desire for a good time.  A mere lad,” he added, reflectively, and went on:  “Go down to Bermuda with a light heart, my boy, and enjoy yourself,—­it will do your church as much good as you.  Play tennis and sail—­fall in love if you find the right girl,—­nothing makes a man over like that.”  North was putting out his hand.  “And remember,” Litterny added, “to keep an eye out for my thief.  You’re retained as assistant detective in the case.”

* * * * *

On a bright, windy morning a steamship wound its careful way through the twisted water-road of Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda.  Up from cabins mid corners poured figures unknown to the decks during the passage, and haggard faces brightened under the balmy breeze, and tired eyes smiled at the dark hills and snowy sands of the sliding shore.  In a sheltered corner of the deck a woman lay back in a chair and drew in breaths of soft air, and a tall girl watched her.

“You feel better already, don’t you?” she demanded, and Mrs. Newbold put her hand into her daughter’s.

“It is Paradise,” she said.  “I am going to get well.”

In an hour the landing had been made, the custom-house passed; the gay, exhilarating little drive had been taken to the hotel, through white streets, past white-roofed houses buried in trees and flowers and vines; the sick woman lay quiet and happy on her bed, drawn to the open window, where the healing of the breeze touched her gently, and where her eyes dreamed over a fairy stretch of sea and islands.  Katherine, moving about the room, unpacking, came to sit in a chair by her mother and talk to her for a moment.