Dusk was mounting the hill-slopes.
“It was a strange talk father and I had. Nearly all the afternoon—while you were checking up ammunition and things. It's the first time he's really sat down with me like that like a friend, I mean—and talked out, just as he felt. Oh, he's been kind. But it's queer about father and me. You see, when they sent me over to the States, I was really only a child. Mother was dead then, you know. Father was always hoping to get over to see me, but there was all the strain of building up the missions after the Boxer trouble, and then he'd had his vacation. And he couldn't afford to bring me out here just for the journey.”
Brachey broke in here. “Did you ask him if he would marry us?”
She nodded. “Yes. And he won't. That's partly what I'm going to tell you. He's resigned.”
“From the church?”
“Yes. He thought of having Mr. Boatwright do it. But it seems that his position is rather difficult. On account of his wife. She'll never be friendly to us.”
“Oh, no!”
“I could see, though, that Dad was glad about our plan for an early wedding. Of course, he's had me to think of, every minute. He did say that the certain knowledge that I'm cared for will make it easier for him to carry out his plans. But he wouldn't tell me what the plans are. It's odd. He doesn't like to think of me as a responsibility. I could see that. I mean, that he might have to do something he didn't believe in in order to earn money for me. He said that he's been for years in a false position. I never saw him so happy. He acts as if he'd been set free.”
“Perhaps he has,” Brachey reflected aloud. “It is strange—almost as if we represented opposite swings of the pendulum, he and I. Perhaps we do. I've not had enough responsibility, he's had too much. Probably one extreme's as unhealthy as the other.”
“I've worried some about him, John. But he begs me not to. He's planning now to sell all his things.”