Frank’s presence of mind had returned to him.  He knew all about Rachel and her father.  She had told him everything.

“I’ll go after her,” he said gently.  “Get me my hat and coat.  I’ll slip down the back stairs and over to the Cove.”

“You must get out of the pantry window, then,” said Mrs. Spencer firmly, mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic fashion.  “The kitchen is full of women.  I won’t have this known and talked about if it can possibly be helped.”

The bridegroom, wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it was well to yield to women in little things, crawled obediently out of the pantry window and darted through the birch wood.  Mrs. Spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared.

So Rachel had gone to her father!  Like had broken the fetters of years and fled to like.

“It isn’t much use fighting against nature, I guess,” she thought grimly.  “I’m beat.  He must have thought something of her, after all, when he sent her that teapot and letter.  And what does he mean about the ‘day they had such a good time’?  Well, it just means that she’s been to see him before, sometime, I suppose, and kept me in ignorance of it all.”

Mrs. Spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud.

“If only she’ll come quietly back with Frank in time to prevent gossip I’ll forgive her,” she said, as she turned to the kitchen.

Rachel was sitting on her father’s knee, with both her white arms around his neck, when Frank came in.  She sprang up, her face flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears.  Frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely.

“Oh, Frank, is it very late?  Oh, are you angry?” she exclaimed timidly.

“No, no, dear.  Of course I’m not angry.  But don’t you think you’d better come back now?  It’s nearly eight and everybody is waiting.”

“I’ve been trying to coax father to come up and see me married,” said Rachel.  “Help me, Frank.”

“You’d better come, sir,” said Frank, heartily, “I’d like it as much as Rachel would.”

David Spencer shook his head stubbornly.

“No, I can’t go to that house.  I was locked out of it.  Never mind me.  I’ve had my happiness in this half hour with my little girl.  I’d like to see her married, but it isn’t to be.”

“Yes, it is to be—­it shall be,” said Rachel resolutely.  “You shall see me married.  Frank, I’m going to be married here in my father’s house!  That is the right place for a girl to be married.  Go back and tell the guests so, and bring them all down.”

Frank looked rather dismayed.  David Spencer said deprecatingly:  “Little girl, don’t you think it would be—­”

“I’m going to have my own way in this,” said Rachel, with a sort of tender finality.  “Go, Frank.  I’ll obey you all my life after, but you must do this for me.  Try to understand,” she added beseechingly.