She was going, but the minister had something to say.  He stepped forward and walked beside her.

“Just a minute, please,” he urged.  “Miss Van Horne, I do understand.  I do respect your uncle.  We have a mutual friend, you and I, and through her I have come to understand many things.”

Grace turned and looked at him.

“A mutual friend?” she repeated.  “Oh!  I know.  Mrs. Coffin?”

“Yes; Mrs. Coffin.  She’s a good woman and a wise one.”

“She’s a dear!  Do you like her, too?”

“Indeed, I do.”

“Has she told you about me—­about uncle, I mean?”

“Yes.  Why, she told me—­”

He began to enumerate some of the things Keziah had told concerning the Hammond family.  They were all good things, and he couldn’t help seeing that the recital pleased her.  So he went on to tell how his housekeeper had helped him, of her advice, of her many acts of kindness, of what he owed to her.  The girl listened eagerly, asking questions, nodding confirmation, and, in her delight at hearing Keziah praised, quite forgetting her previous eagerness to end the interview.  And, as he talked, he looked at her, at the red light on her hair, the shine of her eyes, like phosphorus in the curl of a wave at night, at her long lashes, and—­

—­“Yes,” said Miss Van Horne, “you were saying—­”

The minister awoke with a guilty start.  He realized that his sentence had broken off in the middle.

“Why! why—­er—­yes,” he stammered.  “I was saying that—­that I don’t know what I should have done without Mrs. Coffin.  She’s a treasure.  Frankly, she is the only real friend I have found in Trumet.”

“I know.  I feel the same way about her.  She means so much to me.  I love her more than anyone else in the world, except uncle, of course—­and Nat.  I miss her very much since—­since—­”

“Since I came, you mean.  I’m sorry.  I wish—­I hate to think I am the cause which separates you two.  It isn’t my fault, as you know.”

“Oh!  I know that.”

“Yes, and I object to having others choose my friends for me, people who, because of a fanatical prejudice, stand in the way of—­If it wasn’t for that, you might call and see Mrs. Coffin, just as you used to do.”

Grace shook her head.  They had moved on to the bend of the bluff, beyond the fringe of pines, and were now standing at the very edge of the high bank.

“If it wasn’t for that, you would come,” asserted the minister.

“Yes, I suppose so.  I should like to come.  I miss my talks with Aunt Keziah more than you can imagine—­now especially.  But, somehow, what we want to do most seems to be what we mustn’t, and what we don’t like is our duty.”

She said this without looking at him, and the expression on her face was the same sad, grave one he had noticed when he first saw her standing alone by the pine.

“Why don’t you come?” he persisted.