Joyce had just returned from a half day in the city with Camille, whom she had been treating to some first-class music, and was just crossing the lawns to her own door, when she saw George Dalton come swiftly across the road from the park. She turned towards the walk to greet him, but her happy face fell as she saw the perturbed expression upon his.

"What is it?" she asked, looking down upon him from the ascending walk, which led somewhat steeply up to her veranda steps. "There is some trouble?"

"Yes." He gained her vicinity with a long stride, and said gently, "It's trouble beyond even your helping, this time. Lucy Hapgood's father is dead."

"Dead? Why, has he been ill? I didn't know. Why wasn't I told sooner?"

"No, not ill. He was killed—struck down in anger by Nate Tierney."

"By Nate? Good Nate, who has been so kind; who was such a friend? I can't believe it!"

"Nor I, hardly. Only poor Bill is dead with a broken skull, and Nate in the lock-up. The man—Hapgood, of course—came home drunk, and began abusing Lucy. Nate saw her running from him and snatched the billet of wood that her father was chasing her with. Then they fought, and Bill was finished. It happened not two hours ago."

You will perceive that Dalton told the story as he had heard it, not just as it happened. But his version was the one generally accepted at that time. Joyce clasped her hands together with a passionate movement.

"Dreadful! Dreadful! Poor Lucy; poor Nate!"

"You don't say poor Bill, Miss Lavillotte."

"No, it is the living who are to be pitied here, and Nate most of all. He did it for Lucy's sake, I know; it was to save her from her father's fury. There can be no doubt of that. Did you say that he is already in the lock-up? Where is that?"

He told her.

"I must go to Lucy first," she mused. "How does the poor child bear it?"

"Badly for a time, but she is more quiet now. The French sisters and Rachel are with her, and a lot of other women, who might be spared."

"Miss Joyce, dinner is ready," called Ellen from the veranda with a sour voice, for she resented being kept waiting.

"Come in and eat with us," said Joyce, laying a hand lightly on Dalton's arm. "It will not take us long, and then I can go with you. Won't you, please?"

He colored with pleasure, for her manner was most friendly. Just so might she speak to Mr. Driscoll, he thought.

The little meal was something of a revelation to the man. Ellen carved, and a neat maid handed the plates about on a silver salver. There were flowers on the table, and little else, it seemed to him. Yet, as one course followed another, he felt it to be a bountiful meal, even for the healthy man's appetite that he possessed. It did not please his palate any better than his aunt's excellent dinners, but he felt there were intricacies and embellishments in some of these unknown dishes that her best skill had never compassed. He began with some nervousness, but Joyce's simple, homelike manner soon dispelled it, and they ended over the fruit and coffee in most friendly converse, he telling, she hearing, many particulars of the Hapgood family, that were new to her.

Long before he had concluded Joyce was smiling over a thought which had been growing upon her for some time. George Dalton was not so indifferent to these people of hers as he would often try to appear. Evidently he watched them, understood them, even, possibly, sympathized with them. They were not mere machines to him, as she had once felt they were. He did have an interest that was close and personal, and not wholly of a business character, however much he might try to conceal it under his cool manner.

They soon reached the Hapgood door, around which still clustered a crowd of the neighbors, the men stolidly smoking, the women whispering in detached groups, all with that expectant air which attends upon a tragic incident. They made way respectfully for the manager, but looked somewhat wonderingly upon his companion, probably questioning what could be her interest in the event. Dalton pushed through the press, keeping her close in his wake. But once within the door no conventional barriers were interposed. The gloomy distance and silence attendant upon the last hours of the great were not in the way of friendly sympathy, or unfriendly intrusion, here. The back door stood wide open, and people came and went, while the children's sobs mingled with the curt, outspoken directions of the undertaker and the clatter of dishes, which some obliging neighbor was washing at the kitchen sink. The body of the murdered man lay on the bed in a small room off the little sitting-room—an apartment so tiny that the door had to be left open, so that the implements of this last service to his body might overflow into the larger room. Lucy, pale and swollen-eyed, was rocking the baby before the little gas grate, with her back that way, the child with wide, wakeful eyes gazing solemnly up into her suffering face, trying vainly to puzzle out the situation. Babette, a pretty girl with a rose and lily face, was soothing Rufie and Tilly near by, while Mrs. Hemphill, with her own baby in her arms, kept a sharp lookout both on this little group, and upon the two men in the small bedroom. It seemed to Joyce that the place was aswarm with bustling humanity, and struck her with a sharp pang that the little children should see and hear so much of these gruesome details. Just as they entered Mrs. Hemphill's high-pitched voice was making a remark—

"No, 'tain't easy to dispose of young'uns that's left orphans. Children's like tooth-picks—most folks prefers their own," and Joyce could imagine why Lucy's expression was so tense and drawn.

She stepped quickly to the young girl's side and, stooping, tenderly kissed her cheek. Lucy looked up wonderingly an instant, then burst into a fresh flood of tears, while Joyce held the weary little head against her side, smoothing its pretty hair with soft fingers, but saying no word. Presently the bereaved girl sobbed out, "It's so good of you to come!" and she answered softly, "I was glad to, Lucy. I want you to let me help in someway." She drew a chair forward and looked at the unwinking baby, but did not offer to take it. She felt that the sister drew quietness and comfort from the warmth and pressure of its little body. But in gentle tones she began asking questions of Babette as to the plans and needs for the next few days; and, in listening to her suggestions and promises of assistance, Rufie and Tilly ceased sobbing and drew closer, while even Lucy soon leaned forward, talking unreservedly. The baby, seeing that normal conditions were apparently restored, at last began to blink, and finally fell away into happy dreamland. When Joyce rose to go a sense of comfort pervaded the group. Lucy, fully assured that her father would be laid away with fitting ceremony and that she and the children—though what was she but a child herself, poor thing!—should be decently arrayed in mourning apparel, began to take on a less worried expression. As she also rose, to lay the baby aside on an old lounge in the corner, where the older baby was already asleep, Joyce beckoned to Dalton and conferred with him a minute, then drew on her wrap, to leave.

As Lucy turned, the manager spoke a few words to her.

"Oh, will you, sir?" cried the girl as he finished. "My! but that takes a load offen me. And I can stay in the dear little house, and keep the children, just like I allays did!"

He nodded, and Lucy glanced with a perplexed look from him to Joyce.

"Seems like you're both doing this, and I ought to thank you both," she said. "I was feeling pretty bad before you come in. I couldn't see nothing ahead but to put the children in a Home and go out to service, and—and it 'most killed me!" her lips quivering anew.

Joyce smiled and took her hand.

"Thank him," she said, with a glance up into his eyes. "But you can keep a few kind thoughts for me too, Lucy. I will take it upon myself to attend to your mourning, as I said."

"And you won't forget the veil, Miss Lavillotte?"

"No indeed!" smiling down into the eager young face. "But Lucy"—she bent closer, to speak just above a whisper—"I'm going to poor Nate, now. Have you no kind message to send to him?"

"No, no!" came out sharply, like a suppressed shriek. "He did it! How could I?"

"But to help you, child. It is terrible, I know, and I will not press the matter if it is more than you can bear to speak of it. But, surely, you feel that what Nate did was not intentional? He was shielding you, defending you. Oh, Lucy I would not arraign your father, but I can't help pitying poor Nate, who has been such a friend to you!"

Lucy turned abruptly and went towards the fire, where she stood a moment, shivering perceptibly, a desolate little figure. Soon she raised her head, flung a glance towards Mrs. Hemphill, whose watchful eyes were gloating over the scene, then with a beckoning look towards Joyce walked to the back door. Joyce instantly followed her, leaving her escort in low-toned talk with the undertaker.

"I can't say a word before her," whispered Lucy with a backward jerk of her thumb, "she tattles so! Nate used to tell me not to. But about—I—I can't send no word. He killed my father? Don't you see? He killed my father."

There was such an intensity of trouble and despair in the whisper that it started tears in the eyes of Joyce.

"I can only repeat, my dear, it was not intentional. He was beside himself with trouble and passion; and it was all for you."

"Yes, but 'twas awful, awful! Pa was the red-mad kind, you see; so hot and spunky you couldn't do nothing but run from it. You knew it didn't mean much—just a tantrum that he'd come out of slick enough byme-by, and then be good as pie to make up. But Nate's! 'Twas the awful white-mad kind. I never saw it in him before, and I could see it meant a whole lot. It scared all my scare about pa right out of me. It—I can't tell you how it made me feel! 'Twas like seeing into the bad place, I guess. I knew something had got to break, and it did. 'Twas poor pa's skull. How can I dare to say good words to Nate, when he lies like that in there?"

She pointed backward with a gesture that was tragic in its simplicity, and Joyce could scarcely find words for further argument. But her keen sympathy was with Nate. She had that rare tenderness which goes with acute perceptions, and cannot be complete without them. She could put herself in another's place and actually feel another's woes. She felt poor Tierney's so strongly that she sent up a prayer for guidance before answering, very softly, "My child, Christ forgave from the very cross."

"But you see I can't forgive, because—Oh, you don't know, you don't know. I'm so awful, so wicked!"

She pressed her clasped hands before her mouth as if to shut something back, while Joyce gazed at her, perplexed and uncomprehending.

"You can't forgive, Lucy? Perhaps not, just yet. But you can pity. Let me at least tell poor Nate that you are sure he would not have done it only in great anger, and you'll try to forgive him. Mayn't I say that?"

"Y-yes, make it up any way you like only—only——"

"Only what, Lucy?"

But the girl shook her head.

"I can't tell you. You don't understand. Just say anything you want to."

She turned and ran indoors, then popped out again and sprang down the steps.

"Miss Lav'lotte."

"Yes."

"Please don't forget the black hat and veil. Have it very heavy, and very black, and very long, won't you? Oh pa, poor, poor pa!" and, breaking into loud wailing, Lucy disappeared within.

The girl's manner puzzled Joyce. It seemed to her that Lucy attached immense importance to so trivial a thing as a mourning veil, yet she could not feel that this was all girlish frivolity and shallowness. Something in the child's whole manner disputed such a suggestion. Neither was her attitude towards Nate quite clear. She said she could not forgive, yet instinctively Joyce felt that neither did she entirely condemn. Could it be that deep within her she not only forgave, but condoned, and that her almost feverish desire to appear in the trappings of extreme woe was induced by the consciousness that she was not so filled with resentment and horrified grief as she ought to be?

She was still revolving these queries when Dalton joined her and led her around to the front, debouching so as to avoid the few scattered groups still outside. He did not offer his arm, but kept close at her side, ready to aid instantly should she make a misstep amid the unfamiliar surroundings. Once he steadied her as she slipped from the single plank that made the walk around the cottage, but instantly withdrew his sustaining hand. Not until they were walking along the street, with its electric lights at each intersection, did either speak. Then Joyce asked suddenly,

"Will Lucy ever consent to see Nate again? Can the old-time friendship help, in any degree, to soften her towards him?" George looked down upon the sweet face beside him, so filled with sympathy and concern, and checked some impulse to answer hastily. After a little he said in a deliberate voice, as if weighing each word,

"Dear Miss Lavillotte, when death comes into a life like yours it means grief, pure and simple. Other thoughts and interests are put aside. There is no compulsion, no haste. They can wait. But it is not so with the people we have been to see. There is so much besides the simple sense of loss and bereavement. A thousand anxieties crowd so closely the holier sorrow is half shut out. Sometimes, much as we shrink from acknowledging it, the gain is more than the loss. Perhaps it leaves fewer mouths to feed. Perhaps it takes away a continual menace and terror. You can't conceive of feeling that a father means only a—tormentor. But—think of it."

He felt Joyce shiver beside him, and stopped abruptly, shaken by a sudden consciousness that had never before occurred to him. Could it be that out of her own experience she did comprehend? She looked up piteously and her face was white in the dusk.

"Yes, I could," she murmured in a husky whisper. "I know, I understand."

He dared not speak he was so filled with emotion. It had rushed over him in a flood. To think she had suffered so—she! In a minute her plaintive voice broke upon him once more.

"It's like this. Lucy can't be so sorry as she ought to be, and it is dreadful to her. It is like those fearful dreams when we long to get somewhere and cannot take a step, or ache to cry out and cannot make a sound. She aches to feel sorrier; she is ashamed that she cannot. But grief sits back and laughs at hers, and will not be coaxed into her company. It nearly kills her that it is so, for she is a good, conscientious girl who wants to do and to be right—oh, poor little Lucy!"

He took her shaking hand and drew it gently within his arm. She was weeping behind her veil, and he felt the passion in her outburst. He was not stupid; he had known James Early. He could feel to his soul what was passing in hers, and the revelation wrung him as no sorrow had ever wrung him before. If he but dared to comfort her, to assure her that here was a friend who would stand between her and every wrong in future! After a little he dared trust himself to answer.

"Miss Lavillotte, I think life is always harder than it looks from the outside—yet easier, too. At the worst something comes to help out. And, just because it is so hard, it can be no sin to be glad and happy when Heaven gives us the chance. No decent person will kick a man when he is down; neither does fate. When you talk to Lucy again just tell her to enjoy all she can, and honor her poor father by believing that, wherever he may be now, he will be glad to know she is trying to be happy."

If the words held double solace no one could guess it by Dalton's manner. It was decidedly matter-of-fact above its tenderness. Joyce did not answer, except by a long sighing breath, but there was relief in its sound. Her hand still rested in the arm of her manager, and a feeling of safety and contentment gradually stole into her heart, often sore for her own loneliness, as well as over the woes of others.