MUST have his blessing on her new life. A sudden determination
took possession of her whole being--a determination to sweep
aside all conventionalities and objections as if they had not
been.

It was now almost dark. The guests would not be coming for half
an hour yet. It was only fifteen minutes' walk over the hill to
the Cove. Hastily Rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat,
and drew a dark, protecting hood over her gay head. She opened
the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs. Mrs. Spencer and
her assistants were all busy in the back part of the house. In a
moment Rachel was out in the dewy garden. She would go straight
over the fields. Nobody would see her.

It was quite dark when she reached the Cove. In the crystal cup
of the sky over her the stars were blinking. Flying flakes of
foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. A soft
little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house
where David Spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his
violin on his knee. He had been trying to play, but could not.
His heart yearned after his daughter--yes, and after a
long-estranged bride of his youth. His love of the sea was sated
forever; his love for wife and child still cried for its own
under all his old anger and stubbornness.

The door opened suddenly and the very Rachel of whom he was
dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing
forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid
creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance.