“That’s the only thing of any value I have in the world—­now,” he said.

Rachel knew there was something very sad in his eyes and voice.  She longed to kiss him again and comfort him.  But suddenly he began to laugh, and then he rummaged out some goodies for her to eat, sweetmeats more delicious than she had ever imagined.  While she nibbled them he took down an old violin and played music that made her want to dance and sing.  Rachel was perfectly happy.  She wished she might stay forever in that low, dim room with all its treasures.

“I see your little friends coming around the point,” he said, finally.  “I suppose you must go.  Put the rest of the goodies in your pocket.”

He took her up in his arms and held her tightly against his breast for a single moment.  She felt him kissing her hair.

“There, run along, little girl.  Good-by,” he said gently.

“Why don’t you ask me to come and see you again?” cried Rachel, half in tears.  “I’m coming anyhow.”

“If you can come, come,” he said.  “If you don’t come, I shall know it is because you can’t—­and that is much to know.  I’m very, very, very glad, little woman, that you have come once.”

Rachel was sitting demurely on the skids when her companions came back.  They had not seen her leaving the house, and she said not a word to them of her experiences.  She only smiled mysteriously when they asked her if she had been lonesome.

That night, for the first time, she mentioned her father’s name in her prayers.  She never forgot to do so afterwards.  She always said, “bless mother—­and father,” with an instinctive pause between the two names—­a pause which indicated new realization of the tragedy which had sundered them.  And the tone in which she said “father” was softer and more tender than the one which voiced “mother.”

Rachel never visited the Cove again.  Isabella Spencer discovered that the children had been there, and, although she knew nothing of Rachel’s interview with her father, she told the child that she must never again go to that part of the shore.

Rachel shed many a bitter tear in secret over this command; but she obeyed it.  Thenceforth there had been no communication between her and her father, save the unworded messages of soul to soul across whatever may divide them.

David Spencer’s invitation to his daughter’s wedding was sent with the others, and the remaining days of Rachel’s maidenhood slipped away in a whirl of preparation and excitement in which her mother reveled, but which was distasteful to the girl.

The wedding day came at last, breaking softly and fairly over the great sea in a sheen of silver and pearl and rose, a September day, as mild and beautiful as June.