"It's a wonder ye're not married yet, Aileen, an' you twenty-six."

It was Margaret McCann, the "Freckles" of orphan asylum days, who spoke. Her utterance was thick, owing to the quantity of pins she was endeavoring to hold between tightly pressed lips. She was standing on a chair putting up muslin curtains in her new home at The Gore, or Quarry End Park, as it was now named, and Aileen had come to help her.

"It's like ye're too purticular," she added, her first remark not having met with any response. She turned on the chair and looked down upon her old chum.

She was sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of fresh-cut muslin; the latest McCann baby was tugging with might and main at her apron in vain endeavor to hoist himself upon his pudgy uncertain legs. Aileen was laughing at his efforts. Catching him suddenly in her arms, she covered the little soft head, already sprouting a suspicion of curly red hair, with hearty kisses; and Billy, entering into the fun, crowed and gurgled, clutching wildly at the dark head bent above him and managing now and then, when he did not grasp too wide of the mark, to bury his chubby creased hands deep in its heavy waves.

"Oh, Maggie, you're like all the rest! Because you've a good husband of your own, you think every other girl must go and do likewise."

"Now ye're foolin', Aileen, like as you used to at the asylum. But I mind the time when Luigi was the wan b'y for you—I wonder, now, you couldn't like him, Aileen? He's so handsome and stiddy-like, an' doin' so well. Jim says he'll be one of the rich men of the town if he kapes on as he's begun. They do say as how Dulcie Caukins'll be cuttin' you out."

"I didn't love him, Maggie; that's reason enough." She spoke shortly. Maggie turned again from her work to look down on her in amazement.

"You was always that way, Aileen!" she exclaimed impatiently, "thinkin' nobody but a lord was good enough for you, an' droppin' Luigi as soon as ever you got in with the Van Ostend folks; and as for 'love'—let me give you as good a piece of advice as you'll get between the risin' of a May sun and its settin':—if you see a good man as loves you an' is willin' to marry you, take him, an' don't you leave him the chanct to get cool over it. Ye'll love him fast enough if he's good to you—like my Jim," she added proudly.

"Oh, your Jim! You're always quoting him; he isn't quite perfection even if he is 'your Jim.'"

"An' is it parfection ye're after?" Maggie was apt in any state of excitement to revert in her speech to the vernacular. "'Deed an' ye'll look till the end of yer days an' risk dyin' a downright old maid, if it's parfection ye're after marryin' in a man! An' I don't need a gell as has niver been married to tell me my Jim ain't parfection nayther!"

Maggie resumed her work in a huff; Aileen smiled to herself.

"I didn't mean to say anything against your husband, Maggie; I was only speaking in a general way."

"An' how could ye mane anything against me husband in a gineral or a purticular way? Sure I know he's got a temper; an' what man of anny sinse hasn't, I'd like to know? An' he's not settled-like to work in anny wan place, as I'd like to have him be. But Jim's young; an' a man, he says, can't settle to anny regular work before he's thirty. He says all the purfessional men can't get onto their feet in a business way till they be thirty; an' stone-cuttin', Jim says, is his purfession like as if 't was a lawyer's or a doctor's or a priest's; an' Jim says he loves it. An' there ain't a better worker nor Jim in the sheds, so the boss says; an' if he will querrel between whiles—an' I'm not denyin' he don't—it's sure the other man's fault for doin' something mane; Jim can't stand no maneness. He's a good worker, is Jim, an' a good husband, an' a lovin' father, an' a good provider, an' he don't drink, an' he ain't the slithery kind—if he'd 'a' been that I wouldn't married him."

There was a note of extreme authority in what Maggie in her excitement was giving expression to. Now that Jim McCann was back and at work in the sheds after a seven years absence, it was noted by many, who knew his wife of old, that, in the household, it was now Mrs. McCann who had the right of way. She was evidently full of her subject at the present moment and, carried away by the earnestness of her expressed convictions, she paid no heed to Aileen's non-responsiveness.

"An' I'm that proud that I'm Mrs. James Patrick McCann, wid a good house over me head, an' a good husband to pay rint that'll buy it on the insthalment plan, an' two little gells an' a darlin' baby to fill it, that I be thankin' God whiniver Jim falls to swearin'—an' that's ivery hour in the day; but it's only a habit he can't be broke of, for Father HonorÉ was after talkin' wid him, an' poor Jim was that put out wid himself, that he forgot an' swore his hardest to the priest that he'd lave off swearin' if only he knew whin he was doin' it! But he had to give up tryin', for he found himself swearin' at the baby he loved him so. An' whin he told Father HonorÉ the trouble he had wid himself an' the b'y, that darlin' man just smiled an' says:—'McCann, there's other ways of thankin' God for a good home, an' a lovin' wife, and a foine b'y like yours, than tellin' yer beads an' sayin' your prayers.'—He said that, he did; an' I say, I'm thankin' God ivery hour in the day that I've got a good husband to swear, an' a cellar to fill wid fuel an' potaters, an' a baby to put to me breast, an'—an'—it's the same I'm wishin' for you, me dear."

There was a suspicious tremble in Maggie's voice as she turned again to her work.

Aileen spoke slowly: "Indeed, I wish I had them all, Maggie; but those things are not for me."

"Not for you!" Maggie dashed a tear from her eyes. "An' why not for you, I'd like to know? Isn't ivery wan sayin' ye've got the voice fit for the oppayra? An' isn't all the children an' the quarrymen just mad over yer teachin' an' singin'? An' look at what yer know an' can do! Didn't wan of the Sisters tell me the other day: 'Mrs. McCann,' says she, 'Aileen Armagh is an expurrt in embroidery, an' could earn her livin' by it.' An' wasn't Mrs. Caukins after praisin' yer cookin' an' sayin' you beat the whole Gore on yer doughnuts? An' didn't the Sisters come askin' me the other day if I had your receipt for the milk-rice? Jim says there's a man for ivery woman if she did but know it.—There now, I'm glad to see yer smilin' an' lookin' like yer old self! Just tell me if the curtains be up straight? Jim can't abide annything that ain't on the square. Straight, be they?"

"Yes, straight as a string," said Aileen, laughing outright at Freckles' eloquence—the eloquence of one who was wont to be slow of speech before matrimony loosened her tongue and home love taught her the right word in the right place.

"Straight, is it? Then I'll mount down an' we'll sit out in the kitchen an' hem the rest. It's Doosie Caukins has begged the loan of the two little gells for the afternoon. The twins seem to me most like my own—rale downright swate gells, an' it's hopin' I am they'll do well when it' comes to their marryin'."

Aileen laughed merrily at the matrimonial persistence of her old chum's thoughts.

"Oh, Maggie, you are an incorrigible matchmaker!"

She picked up the baby and the yards of muslin she had been measuring for window lengths; leaving Maggie to follow, she went out into the kitchen and deposited Billy in the basket-crib beside her chair. Maggie joined her in a few minutes.

"It seems like old times for you an' me to be chattin' together again so friendly-like—put a finger's length into the hem of the long ones; do you remember when Sister Angelica an' you an' me was cuddled together to watch thim dance the minute over at the Van Ostends'?—Och, you darlin'!"

She rose from her chair and caught up the baby who was holding out both arms to her and trying in his semi-articulate way to indicate his preference of her lap to the basket.

"What fun we had!" Aileen spoke half-heartedly; the mention of that name intensified the pain of an ever present thought.

"An' did ye read her marriage in the papers, I guess 't was a year gone?"

Aileen nodded.

"Jim read it out to me wan night after supper, an' I got so homesick of a suddin' for the Caukinses, an' you, an' the quarries, an' Mrs. Googe—it was before me b'y come—that I fell to cryin' an' nearly cried me eyes out; an' Jim promised me then and there he'd come back to Flamsted for good and all. But he couldn't help sayin': 'What the divil are ye cryin' about, Maggie gell? I was readin' of the weddin' to ye, and thinkin' to hearten ye up a bit, an' here ye be cryin' fit to break yer heart, an' takin' on as if ye'd niver had a weddin' all by yerself!' An' that made me laugh; but, afterwards, I fell to cryin' the harder, an' told him I couldn't help it, for I'd got such a good lovin' husband, an' me an orphan as had nobody—

"An' then I stopped, for Jim took me in his arms—he was in the rockin'-chair—and rocked back an' forth wid me like a mother does wid a six-months' child, an' kept croonin' an' croonin' till I fell asleep wid my head on his shoulder—" Mrs. McCann drew a long breath—"Och, Aileen, it's beautiful to be married!"

For a while the two worked in silence, broken only by little Billy McCann, who was blissfully gurgling emphatic endorsement of everything his mother said. The bright sunshine of February filled the barren Gore full to the brim with sparkling light. From time to time the sharp crescendo sz-szz-szzz of the trolleys, that now ran from The Corners to Quarry End Park at the head of The Gore, teased the still cold air. Maggie was in a reminiscent mood, being wrought upon unwittingly by the sunny quiet and homey kitchen warmth. She looked over the head of her baby to Aileen.

"Do you remember the B'y who danced with the Marchioness, and when they was through stood head downwards with his slippers kicking in the air?"

"Yes, and the butler, and how he hung on to his coat-tails!"

Maggie laughed. "I wonder now could it be the B'y—I mane the man she married?"

Aileen looked up from her work. "Yes, he's the one."

"An' how did you know that?" Maggie asked in some surprise.

"Mrs. Champney told me—and then I knew she liked him."

"Who, the Marchioness?"

"Yes; I knew by the way she wrote about him that she liked him."

"Well, now, who'd 'a' thought that! The very same B'y!" she exclaimed, at the same time looking puzzled as if not quite grasping the situation. "Why, I thought—I guess 't was Romanzo wrote me just about that time—that she was in love with Mr. Champney Googe." Her voice sank to a whisper on the last words. "Wouldn't it have been just awful if she had!"

"She might have done a worse thing than to love him." Aileen's voice was hard in spite of her effort to speak naturally.

Maggie broke forth in protest.

"Now, how can you say that, Aileen! What would the poor gell's life have been worth married to a man that's in for seven years! Jim says when he comes out he can't niver vote again for prisident, an' it's ten chanct to wan that he'll get a job."

In her earnestness she failed to notice that Aileen's face had borrowed its whiteness from the muslin over which she was bending.

"Aileen—"

"Yes, Maggie."

"I'm goin' to tell you something. Jim told me the other day; he wouldn't mind my tellin' you, but he says he don't want anny wan of the fam'ly to get wind of it."

"What is it?" Aileen looked up half fearfully.

"Gracious, you look as if you'd seen a ghost! 'T isn't annything so rale dreadful, but it gives you a kind of onaisy feelin' round your heart."

"What is it? Tell me quick." She spoke again peremptorily in order to cover her fear. Maggie looked at her wonderingly, and thought to herself that Aileen had changed beyond her knowledge.

"There was a man Jim knew in the other quarries we was at, who got put into that same prison for two years—for breakin' an' enterin'—an' Jim see him not long ago; an' when Jim told him where he was workin' the man said just before he was comin' out, Mr. Googe come in, an' he see him breakin' stones wid a prison gang—rale toughs; think of that, an' he a gentleman born! Jim said that was tough; he says it's back-breakin' work; that quarryin' an' cuttin' ain't nothin' to that—ten hours a day, too. My heart's like to break for Mrs. Googe. I think of it ivery time I see her now; an' just look how she's workin' her fingers to the bone to support herself widout help! Mrs. Caukins says she's got seventeen mealers among the quarrymen now, an' there'll be more next spring. What do you s'pose her son would say to that?"

She pressed her own boy a little more closely to her breast; the young mother's heart was stirred within her. "Mrs. Caukins says Mrs. Champney could help her an' save her lots, but she won't; she's no mind to."

"I don't believe Mrs. Googe would accept any help from Mrs. Champney—and I don't blame her, either. I'd rather starve than be beholden to her!" The blood rushed into the face bent over the muslin.

"Why don't you lave her, Aileen? I would—the stingy old screw!"

Aileen folded her work and laid it aside before she answered.

"I am going soon, Maggie; I've stood it about as many years as I can—"

"Oh, but I'm glad! It'll be like gettin' out of the jail yerself, for all you've made believe you've lived in a palace—but ye're niver goin' so early?" she protested earnestly.

"Yes, I must, Maggie. You are not to tell anyone what I've said about leaving Mrs. Champney—not even Jim."

Maggie's face fell. "Dear knows, I can promise you not to tell Jim; but it's like I'll be tellin' him in me slape. It's a trick I have, he says, whin I'm tryin' to kape something from him."

She laughed happily, and bade Billy "shake a day-day" to the pretty lady; which behest Billy, half turning his rosy little face from the maternal fount, obeyed perfunctorily and then, smiling, closed his sleepy eyes upon his mother's breast.

---

II

Aileen took that picture of intimate love and warmth with her out into the keen frosty air of late February. But its effect was not to soften, to warm; it hardened rather. The thought of Maggie with her baby boy at her breast, of her cosy home, her loyalty to her husband and her love for him, of her thankfulness for the daily mercy of the wherewithal to feed the home mouths, reacted sharply, harshly, upon the mood she was in; for with the thought of that family life and family ties—the symbol of all that is sane and fruitful of the highest good in our humanity—was associated by extreme contrast another thought:—

"And he is breaking stones with a 'gang of toughs'—breaking stones! Not for the sake of the pittance that will procure for him his daily bread, but because he is forced to the toil like any galley slave. The prison walls are frowning behind him; the prison cell is his only home; the tin pan of coarse food, which is handed to him as he lines up with hundreds of others after the day's work, is the only substitute for the warm home-hearth, the lighted supper table, the merry give-and-take of family life that eases a man after his day's toil."

Her very soul was in rebellion.

She stopped short and looked about her. She was on the road to Father HonorÉ's house. It was just four o'clock, for the long whistle was sounding from the stone sheds down in the valley. She saw the quarrymen start homewards. Dark irregular files of them began crawling up over the granite ledges, many of which were lightly covered with snow. Although it was February, the winter was mild for this latitude, and the twelve hundred men in The Gore had lost but a few days during the last three months on account of the weather. Work had been plenty, and the spring promised, so the manager said, a rush of business. She watched them for a while.

"And they are going to their homes—and he is still breaking stones!" Her thoughts revolved about that one fact.

A sudden rush of tears blinded her; she drew her breath hard. What if she were to go to Father HonorÉ and tell him something of her trouble? Would it help? Would it ease the intolerable pain at her heart, lessen the load on her mind?

She dared not answer, dared not think about it. Involuntarily she started forward at a quick pace towards the stone house over by the pines—a distance of a quarter of a mile.

The sun was nearing the rim of the Flamsted Hills. Far beyond them, the mighty shoulder of Katahdin, mantled with white, caught the red gleam and lent to the deep blue of the northern heavens a faint rose reflection of the setting sun. The children, just from school, were shouting at their rough play—snow-balling, sledding, skating and tobogganning on that portion of the pond which had been cleared of snow. The great derricks on the ledges creaked and groaned as the remaining men made all fast for the night; like a gigantic cobweb their supporting wires stretched thick, enmeshed, and finely dark over the white expanse of the quarries. From the power-house a column of steam rose straight and steady into the windless air.

Hurrying on, Aileen looked upon it with set lips and a hardening heart. She had come to hate, almost, the sight of this life of free toil for the sake of love and home.

It was a woman who was thinking these thoughts in her rapid walk to the priest's house—a woman of twenty-six who for more than seven years had suffered in silence; suffered over and over again the humiliation that had been put upon her womanhood; who, despite that humiliation, could not divest herself of the idea that she still clung to her girlhood's love for the man who had humiliated her. She told herself again and again that she was idealizing that first feeling for him, instead of accepting the fact that, as a woman, she would be incapable, if the circumstances were to repeat themselves now, of experiencing it.

Since that fateful night in The Gore, Champney Googe's name had never voluntarily passed her lips. So far as she knew, no one so much as suspected that she was a factor in his escape—for Luigi had kept her secret. Sometimes when she felt, rather than saw, Father HonorÉ's eyes fixed upon her in troubled questioning, the blood would rush to her cheeks and she could but wonder in dumb misery if Champney had told him anything concerning her during those ten days in New York.

For six years there had been a veil, as it were, drawn between the lovely relations that had previously existed between Father HonorÉ and this firstling of his flock in Flamsted. For a year after his experience with Champney Googe in New York, he waited for some sign from Aileen that she was ready to open her heart to him; to clear up the mystery of the handkerchief; to free herself from what was evidently troubling her, wearing upon her, changing her in disposition—but not for the better. Aileen gave no sign. Another year passed, but Aileen gave no sign, and Father HonorÉ was still waiting.

The priest did not believe in forcing open the portals to the secret chambers of the human heart. He respected the individual soul and its workings as a part of the divinely organized human. He believed that, in time, Aileen would come to him of her own accord and seek the help she so sorely needed. Meanwhile, he determined to await patiently the fulness of that time. He had waited already six years.

---

He was looking over and arranging some large photographs of cathedrals—Cologne, Amiens, Westminster, Mayence, St. Mark's, Chester, and York—and the detail of nave, chancel, and choir. One showed the exquisite sculpture on a flying buttress; another the carving of a choir-stall canopy; a third the figure-crowded faÇade of a western porch. Here was the famous rose window in the Antwerp transept; the statue of one of the apostles in Naumburg; the nave of Cologne; the conglomerate of chapels about the apse of Mayence; the Angel's Pillar at Strasburg—they were a joy in line and proportion to the eye, in effect and spirit of purpose to the understanding mind, the receptive soul.

Father HonorÉ was revelling in the thought of the men's appreciative delight when he should show them these lovely stones—across-the-sea kin to their own quarry granite. His semi-monthly talks with the quarrymen and stone-cutters were assuming, after many years, the proportions of lectures on art and scientific themes. Already many a professor from some far-away university had accepted his invitation to give of his best to the granite men of Maine. Rarely had they found a more fitting or appreciative audience.

"How divine!" he murmured to himself, his eyes dwelling lovingly—at the same time his pencil was making notes—on the 'Prentice Pillar in Roslyn Chapel. Then he smiled at the thought of the contrast it offered to his own chapel in the meadows by the lake shore. In that, every stone, as in the making of the Tabernacle of old, had been a free-will offering from the men—each laid in its place by a willing worker; and, because willing, the rough walls were as eloquent of earnest endeavor as the famed 'Prentice Pillar itself.

"I'd like to see such a one as this in our chapel!" He was talking to himself as was his way when alone. "I believe Luigi Poggi, if he had kept on in the sheds, would in time have given this a close second."

He took up the magnifying glass to examine the curled edges of the stone kale leaves.

There was a knock at the door.

He hastily placed the photographs in a long box beside the table, and, instead of saying "Come in," stepped to the door and opened it.

Aileen stood there. The look in her eyes as she raised them to his, and said in a subdued voice, "Father HonorÉ, can you spare me a little time, all to myself?" gave him hope that the fulness of time was come.

"I always have time for you, Aileen; come in. I'll start up the fire a bit; it's growing much colder."

He laid the wood on the hearth, and with the bellows blew it to a leaping flame. While he was thus occupied, Aileen looked around her. She knew this room and loved it.

The stone fireplace was deep and ample, built by Father HonorÉ,—indeed, the entire one storey house was his handiwork. Above it hung a large wooden crucifix. On the shelf beneath were ranged some superb specimens of quartz and granite. The plain deal table, also of ample proportions, was piled at one end high with books and pamphlets. Two large windows overlooked the pond, the sloping depression of The Gore, the course of the Rothel, and the headwaters of Lake Mesantic. Some plain wooden armchairs were set against the walls that had been rough plastered and washed with burnt sienna brown. On them was hung an exquisite engraving—the Sistine Madonna and Child. There were also a few etchings, among them a copy of Whistler's The Thames by London Bridge, and a view of Niagara by moonlight. A mineral cabinet, filled to overflowing with fine specimens, extended the entire length of one wall. The pine floor was oiled and stained; large hooked rugs, genuine products of Maine, lay here and there upon it.

Many a man coming in from the quarries or the sheds with a grievance, a burden, or a joy, felt the influence of this simple room. Many a woman brought here her heavy over-charged heart and was eased in its fire-lighted atmosphere of welcome. Many a child brought hither its spring offering of the first mitchella, or its autumn gift of checkerberries. Many a girl, many a boy had met here to rehearse a Christmas glee or an Easter anthem. Many a night these walls echoed to the strains of the priest's violin, when he sat alone by the fireside with only the Past for a guest. And these combined influences lingered in the room, mellowed it, hallowed it, and made themselves felt to one and all as beneficent—even as now to Aileen.

Father HonorÉ placed two of the wooden chairs before the blazing fire. Aileen took one.

"Draw up a little nearer, Aileen; you look chilled." He noticed her extreme pallor and the slight trembling of her shoulders.

She glanced out of the window at some quarrymen who were passing.

"You don't think we shall be interrupted, do you?" she asked rather nervously.

"Oh, no. I'll just step to the kitchen and give a word to ThÉrÈse. She is a good watchdog when I am not to be disturbed." He opened a door at the back of the room.

"ThÉrÈse."

"On y va."

An old French Canadian appeared in answer to his call. He addressed her in French.

"If any one should knock, ThÉrÈse, just step to the kitchen porch door and say that I am engaged for an hour, at least."

"Oui, oui, PÈre HonorÉ."

He closed the door.

"There, now you can have your chat 'all to yourself' as you requested," he said smiling. He sat down in the other chair he had drawn to the fire.

"I've been over to Maggie's this afternoon—"

She hesitated; it was not easy to find an opening for her long pent trouble.

Father HonorÉ spread his hands to the blaze.

"She has a fine boy. I'm glad McCann is back again, and I hope anchored here for life. He's trying to buy his home he tells me."

"So Maggie said—Father HonorÉ;" she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously; "I think it's that that has made me come to you to-day."

"That?—I think I don't quite understand, Aileen."

"The home—I think I never felt so alone—so homeless as when I was there with her—and the baby—"

She looked down, struggling to keep back the tears. Despite her efforts the bright drops plashed one after the other on her clasped hands. She raised her eyes, looking almost defiantly through the falling tears at the priest; the blood surged into her white cheeks; the rush of words followed:—

"I have no home—I've never had one—never shall have one—it's not for me, that paradise; it's for men and women like Jim McCann and Maggie.—Oh, why did I come here!" she cried out wildly; "why did you put me there in that house?—Why didn't Mr. Van Ostend let me alone where I was—happy with the rest! Why," she demanded almost fiercely, "why can't a child's life be her own to do with what she chooses? Why has any human being a right to say to another, whether young or old, 'You shall live here and not there'? Oh, it is tyrannical—it is tyranny of the worst kind, and what haven't I had to suffer from it all! It is like Hell on earth!"

Her breath caught in great sobs that shook her; her eyes flashed through blinding tears; her cheeks were crimson; she continued to clasp and unclasp her hands.

The peculiar ivory tint of the strong pock-marked face opposite her took on, during this outburst, a slightly livid hue. Every word she uttered was a blow; for in it was voiced misery of mind, suffering and hardness of heart, despair, ingratitude, undeserved reproach, anger, defiance and the ignoring of all facts save those in the recollection of which she had lost all poise, all control—And she was still so young! What was behind these facts that occasioned such a tirade?

This was the priest's problem.

He waited a moment to regain his own control. The ingratitude, the bitter injustice had shocked him out of it. Her mood seemed one of defiance only. The woman before him was one he had never known in the Aileen Armagh of the last fourteen years. He knew, moreover, that he must not speak—dare not, as a sacred obligation to his office, until he no longer felt the touch of anger he experienced upon hearing her unrestrained outburst. It was but a moment before that touch was removed; his heart softened towards her; filled suddenly with a pitying love, for with his mind's eye he saw the small blood-stained handkerchief in his hand, the initials A. A., the man on the cot from whose arm he had taken it more than six years before. Six years! How she must have suffered—and in silence!

"Aileen," he said at last and very gently, "whatever was done for you at that time was done with the best intentions for your good. Believe me, could Mr. Van Ostend and I have foreseen such resulting wretchedness as this for our efforts, we should never have insisted on carrying out our plan for you. But, like yourself, we are human—we could not foresee this any more than you could. There is, however, one course always open to you—"

"What?" she demanded; her voice was harsh from continued struggle with her complex emotions. She was past all realization of what she owed to the dignity of his office.

"You have long been of age; you are at liberty to leave Mrs. Champney whenever you will."

"I am going to." The response came prompt and hard.

"And what then?"

"I don't know—yet—;" her speech faltered; "but I want to try the stage. Every one says I have the voice for it, and I suppose I could make a hit in light operetta or vaudeville as well now as when I was a child. A few years more and I shall be too old."

"And you think you can enter into such publicity without protection?"

"Oh, I'm able to protect myself—I've done that already." She spoke with bitterness.

"True, you are a woman now—but still a young woman—"

Father HonorÉ stopped there. He was making no headway with her. He knew only too well that, as yet, he had not begun to get beneath the surface. When he spoke it was as if he were merely thinking aloud.

"Somehow, I hadn't thought that you would be so ready to leave us all—so many friends. Are we nothing to you, Aileen? Will you make better, truer ones among strangers? I can hardly think so."

She covered her face with her hands and began to sob again, but brokenly.

"Aileen, my daughter, what is it? Is there any new trouble preparing for you at The Bow?"

She shook her head. The tears trickled through her fingers.

"Does Mrs. Champney know that you are going to leave her?"

"No."

"Has it become unbearable?"

Another shake of the head. She searched blindly for her handkerchief, drew it forth and wiped her eyes and face.

"No; she's kinder than she's been for a long time—ever since that last stroke. She wants me with her most of the time."

"Has she ever spoken to you about remaining with her?"

"Yes, a good many times. She tried to make me promise I would stay till—till she doesn't need me. But, I couldn't, you know."

"Then why—but of course I know you are worn out by her long invalidism and tired of the fourteen years in that one house. Still, she has been lenient since you were twenty-one. She has permitted you—although of course you had the undisputed right—to earn for yourself in teaching the singing classes in the afternoon and evening school, and she pays you something beside—fairly well, doesn't she? I think you told me you were satisfied."

"Oh yes, in a way—so far as it goes. She doesn't begin to pay me as she would have to pay another girl in my position—if I have any there. I haven't said anything about it to her, because I wanted to work off my indebtedness to her on account of what she spent on me in bringing me up—she never let me forget that in those first seven years! I want to give more than I've had," she said proudly, "and sometime I shall tell her of it."

"But you have never given her any love?"

"No, I couldn't give her that.—Do you blame me?"

"No; you have done your whole duty by her. May I suggest that when you leave her you still make your home with us here in Flamsted? You have no other home, my child."

"No, I have no other home," she repeated mechanically.

"I know, at least, two that are open to you at any time you choose to avail yourself of their hospitality. Mrs. Caukins would be so glad to have you both for her daughters' sake and her own. The Colonel desires this as much as she does and—" he hesitated a moment, "now that Romanzo has his position in the New York office, and has married and settled there, there could be no objection so far as I can see."

There was no response.

"But if you do not care to consider that, there is another. About seven months ago, Mrs. Googe—"

"Mrs. Googe?"

She turned to him a face from which every particle of color had faded.

"Yes, Mrs. Googe. She would have spoken to you herself long before this, but, you know, Aileen, how she would feel in the circumstances—she would not think of suggesting your coming to her from Mrs. Champney. I feel sure she is waiting for you to take the initiative."

"Mrs. Googe?" she repeated, continuing to stare at him—blankly, as if she had heard but those two words of all that he was saying.

"Why, yes, Mrs. Googe. Is there anything so strange in that? She has always loved you, and she said to me, only the other day, 'I would love to have her young companionship in my house'—she will never call it home, you know, until her son returns—'to be as a daughter to me'—"

"Daughter!—I—want air—"

She swayed forward in speaking. Father HonorÉ sprang and caught her or she would have fallen. He placed her firmly against the chair back and opened the window. The keen night air charged with frost quickly revived her.

"You were sitting too near the fire; I should have remembered that you had come in from the cold," he said, delicately regarding her feelings; "let me get you a glass of water, Aileen."

She put out her hand with a gesture of dissent. She began to breathe freely. The room chilled rapidly. Father HonorÉ closed the window and took his stand on the hearth. Aileen raised her eyes to him. It seemed as if she lifted the swollen reddened lids with difficulty.

"Father HonorÉ," she said in a low voice, tense with suppressed feeling, "dear Father HonorÉ, the only father I have ever known, don't you know why I cannot go to Mrs. Googe's?—why I must not stay too long in Flamsted?"

And looking into those eyes, that were incapable of insincerity, that, in the present instance, attempted to veil nothing, the priest read all that of which, six years ago on that never to be forgotten November night in New York, he had had premonition.

"My daughter—is it because of Champney's prospective return within a year that you feel you cannot remain longer with us?"

Her quivering lips gave an almost inaudible assent.

"Why?" He dared not spare her; he felt, moreover, that she did not wish to be spared. His eyes held hers.

Bravely she answered, bracing soul and mind and body to steadfastness. There was not a wavering of an eyelid, not a suggestion of faltering speech as she spoke the words that alone could lift from her overburdened heart the weight of a seven years' silence:

"Because I love him."

The answer seemed to Father HonorÉ supreme in its sacrificial simplicity. He laid his hand on her head. She bowed beneath his touch.

"I have tried so hard," she murmured, "so hard—and I cannot help it. I have despised myself for it—if only he hadn't been put there, I think it would have helped—but he is there, and my thoughts are with him there—I see him nights—in that cell—I see him daytimes breaking stones—I can't sleep, or eat, without comparing—you know. Oh, if he hadn't been put there, I could have conquered this weakness—"

"Aileen, no! It is no weakness, it is strength."

Father HonorÉ withdrew his hand, that had been to the broken woman a silent benediction, and walked up and down the long room. "You would never have conquered; there was—there is no need to conquer. Such love is of God—trust it, my child; don't try any longer to thrust it forth from your heart, your life; for if you do, your life will be but a poor maimed thing, beneficial neither to yourself nor to others. I say, cherish this supreme love for the man who is expiating in a prison; hold it close to your soul as a shield and buckler to the spirit against the world; truly, you will need no other if you go forth from us into a world of strangers—but why, why need you go?"

He spoke gently, but insistently. He saw that the girl was hanging upon his every word as if he bespoke her eternal salvation. And, in truth, the priest was illumining the dark and hidden places of her life and giving her courage to love on which, to her, meant courage to live on.—Such were the demands of a nature, loyal, impulsive, warmly affectionate, sincere, capable of an all-sacrificing love that could give without return if need be, but a nature which, without love developing in her of itself just for the sake of love, would shrivel, become embittered, and like withered fruit on a tree drop useless to the ground to be trodden under the careless foot of man.

In the darkening room the firelight leaped and showed to Father HonorÉ the woman's face transfigured under the powerful influence of his words. She smiled up at him—a smile so brave in its pathos, so winning in its true womanliness, that Father HonorÉ felt the tears bite his eyeballs.

"Perhaps I don't need to go then."

"This rejoices me, Aileen—it will rejoice us all," he answered heartily to cover his emotion.

"But it won't be easy to stay where I am."

"I know—I know; you speak as one who has suffered; but has not Champney suffered too? Think of his home-coming!"

"Yes, he has suffered—in a way—but not my way."

Father HonorÉ had a vision at that moment of Champney Googe's face when he said, "But you loved her with your whole manhood." He made no reply, but waited for Aileen to say more if she should so choose.

"I believed he loved me—and so I told him my love—I shall never, never get over that!" she exclaimed passionately. "But I know now—I knew before he went away the last time, that I was mistaken; no man could say what he did and know even the first letter of love."

Her indignation was rising, and Father HonorÉ welcomed it; it was a natural trait with her, and its suppression gave him more cause for anxiety than its expression.

"He didn't love me—not really—"

"Are you sure of this, Aileen?"

"Yes, I am sure."

"You have good reason to know that you are telling a fact in asserting this?"

"Yes, altogether too good a reason." There was a return of bitterness in her answer.

Father HonorÉ was baffled. Aileen spoke without further questioning. Evidently she was desirous of making her position as well as Champney's plain to him and to herself. Her voice grew more gentle as she continued:—

"Father HonorÉ, I've loved him so long—and so truly, without hope, you know—never any hope, and hating myself for loving where I was not loved—that I think I do know what love is—"

Father HonorÉ smiled to himself in the half-dark; this voice was still young, and its love-wisdom was young-wise, also. There was hope, he told himself, that all would come right in the end—work together for good.

"But Mr. Googe never loved me as I loved him—and I couldn't accept less."

The priest caught but the lesser part of her meaning. Even his wisdom and years failed to throw light on the devious path of Aileen's thoughts at this moment. Of the truth contained in her expression, he had no inkling.

"Aileen, I don't know that I can make it plain to you, but—a man's love is so different from a woman's that, sometimes, I think such a statement as you have just made is so full of flaws that it amounts to sophistry; but there is no need to discuss that.—Let me ask you if you can endure to stay on with Mrs. Champney for a few months longer? I have a very special reason for asking this. Sometime I will tell you."

"Oh, yes;" she spoke wearily, indifferently; "I may as well stay there as anywhere now." Then with more interest and animation, "May I tell you something I have kept to myself all these years? I want to get rid of it."

"Surely—the more the better when the heart is burdened."

He took his seat again, and with pitying love and ever increasing interest and amazement listened to her recital of the part she played on that October night in the quarry woods—of her hate that turned to love again when she found the man she had both loved and hated in the extreme of need, of the 'murder'—so she termed it in her contrition—of Rag, of her swearing Luigi to silence. She told of herself—but of Champney Googe's unmanly temptation of her honor, of his mad passion for her, she said never a word; her two pronounced traits of chastity and loyalty forbade it, as well as the desire of a loving woman to shield him she loved in spite of herself.

Of the little handkerchief that played its part in that night's threatened tragedy she said nothing—neither did Father HonorÉ; evidently, she had forgotten it.

Suddenly she clasped her hands hard over her heart.

"That dear loving little dog's death has lain here like a stone all these years," she said, and rose to go.

"You are absolved, Aileen," he said smiling. "It was, like many others, a little devoted life sacrificed to a great love."

He reached to press the button that turned on the electric lights. Their soft brilliance caught in sparkling gleams on the points of a small piece of almost pure white granite among the specimens on the shelf above them. Father HonorÉ rose and took it from its place.

"This is for you, Aileen," he said handing it to her.

"For me?" She looked at him in wonder, not understanding what he meant by this insignificant gift at such a time.

He smiled at her look of amazement.

"No wonder you look puzzled. You must be thinking you have 'asked me for bread and I am giving you a stone.' But this is for remembrance."

He hesitated a moment.

"You said once this afternoon, that for years it had been a hell on earth for you—a strong expression to fall from a young woman's lips; and I said nothing. Sometime, perhaps, you will see things differently. But if I said nothing, it was only because I thought the more; for just as you spoke those words, my eye caught the glitter of this piece of granite in the firelight, and I said to myself—'that is like what Aileen's life will be, and through her life what her character will prove to be.' This stone has been crushed, subjected to unimaginable heat, upheaved, submerged, ground again to powder, remelted, overwhelmed, made adamant, rent, upheaved again,—and now, after Æons, it lies here so near the blue above our Flamsted Hills, worthy to be used and put to all noble uses; fittest in all the world for foundation stone—for it is the foundation rock of our earth crust—for all lasting memorials of great deed and noble thought; for all temples and holies of holies. Take it, Aileen, and—remember!"

"I will, oh, I will; and I'll try to fit myself, too; I'll try, dear, dear Father HonorÉ," she said humbly, gratefully.

He held out his hand and she placed hers in it. He opened the door.

"Good night, Aileen, and God bless you."

"Good night, Father HonorÉ."

She went out into the clear winter starlight. The piece of granite, she held tightly clasped in her hand.

---

The priest, after closing the door, went to the pine table and opening a drawer took out a letter. It bore a recent date. It was from the chaplain of the prison and informed him there was a strong prospect of release for Champney Googe at least three months before the end of his term. Father HonorÉ smiled to himself. He refolded it and laid it in the drawer.

---

III

Early in the following March, on the arrival of the 3 P.M. train from Hallsport, there was the usual crowd at The Corners' station to meet it. They watched the passengers as they left the train and commented freely on one and another known to them.

"I'll bet that's the new boss at the upper quarries," said one, pointing to a short thickset man making his way up the platform.

"Yes, that's him; and they're taking on a gang of new men with him; they're in the last car—there they come! There's going to be a regular spring freshet of 'em coming along now—the business is booming."

They scanned the men closely as they passed, between twenty and thirty of them of various nationalities. They were gesticulating wildly, vociferating loudly, shouldering bundle, knapsack or tool-kit. Behind them came a few stone-cutters, mostly Scotch and Irish. The last to leave the train was evidently an American.

The crowd on the platform surged away to the electric car to watch further proceedings of the newly arrived "gang." The arrival of the immigrant workmen always afforded fun for the natives. The men shivered and hunched their shoulders; the raw March wind was searching. The gesticulating and vociferating increased. To any one unacquainted with foreign ways, a complete rupture of international peace and relations seemed imminent. They tumbled over one another into the cars and filled them to overflowing, even to the platform where they clung to the guards.

The man who had been the last to leave the train stood on the emptied platform and looked about him. He carried a small bundle. He noted the sign on the electric cars, "To Quarry End Park". A puzzled look came into his face. He turned to the baggage-master who was wrestling with the immigrants' baggage:—iron-bound chests, tin boxes and trunks, sacks of heavy coarse linen filled with bedding.

"Does this car go to the sheds?"

The station master looked up. "It goes past there, but this is the regular half-hour express for the quarries and the Park. You a stranger in these parts?"

"This is all strange to me," the man answered.

"Any baggage?"

"No."

At that moment there was a rapid clanging of the gong; the motorman let fly the whirling rod; the over full cars started with a jerk—there was a howl, a shout, followed by a struggle to keep the equilibrium; an undersized Canuck was seen to be running madly alongside with one hand on the guard and endeavoring to get a foothold; he was hauled up unceremoniously by a dozen hands. The crowd watching them, cheered and jeered:

"Goin' it some, Antoine! Don't get left!"

"Keep on your pins, you Dagos!"

"Steady, Polacks—there's the strap!"

"Gee up, Johnny!" This to the motorman.

"Gosh, it's like a soda bottle fizzin' to hear them Rooshians talkin'."

"Hooray for you!"

The cars were off swiftly now; the men on the platforms waved their hats, their white teeth flashing, their gold earrings twinkling, and echoed the American cheer:—

"Horray!"

The station master turned away laughing.

"They look like a tough crowd, but they're O. K. in the end," he said to the man beside him who was looking after the vanishing car and its trailer. "There's yours coming down the switch. That'll take you up to Flamsted and the sheds." He pushed the loaded truck up the platform.

The stranger entered the car and took a seat at the rear; there were no other passengers. He told the conductor to leave him as near as possible to the sheds.

"Guess you don't know these parts?" The conductor put the question.

"This here is new to me," the man answered; he seemed nothing loath to enter into conversation. "When was this road built?"

"'Bout five years ago. You'll see what a roadway they've made clear along the north shore of the lake; it's bein' built up with houses just as fast as it's taken up."

He rang the starting bell. The car gathered headway and sped noisily along the frozen road-bed. In a few minutes it stopped at the Flamsted station; then it followed the shore of the lake for two miles until it reached the sheds. It stopped here and the man got out.

"Can you tell me where the manager's office is?" he asked a workman who was passing.

"Over there." He pointed with his thumb backwards across some railroad tracks and through a stone-yard to a small two-storey office building at the end of three huge sheds.

The man made his way across to them. Once he stopped to look at the leaden waters of the lake, rimmed with ice; and up at the leaden sky that seemed to be shutting down close upon them like a lid; and around at the gray waste of frozen ground, the meadows covered lightly with snow and pools of surface ice that here and there showed the long bleached grass pricking through in grayish-yellow tufts. Beyond the meadows he saw a rude stone chapel, and near by the foundations, capped with wood, of a large church. He shivered once; he had no overcoat. Then he went on to the manager's office. He rang and opened the door.

"Can I see the manager?"

"He's out now; gone over to the engine-house to see about the new smoke stack; he'll be back in a few minutes. Guess you'll find a stool in the other room."

The man entered the room, but remained standing, listening with increasing interest to the technical talk of the other two men who were half lying on the table as they bent over some large plans—an architect's blue prints. Finally the man drew near.

"May I look too?" he asked.

"Sure. These are the working plans for the new Episcopal cathedral at A.;" he named a well known city; "you've heard of it, I s'pose?"

The man shook his head.

"Here for a job?"

"Yes. Is all this work to be done by the company?"

"Every stone. We got the contract eleven months ago. We're at work on these courses now." He turned the plates that the man might see.

He bent over to examine them, noting the wonderful detail of arch and architrave, of keystone, cornice and foundation course. Each stone, varying in size and shape, was drawn with utmost accuracy, dimensions given, numbered with its own number for the place of its setting into the perfect whole. The stability of the whole giant structure was dependent upon the perfection and right placing of each individual stone from lowest foundation to the keystones of the vaulting arches of the nave; the harmony of design dependent on rightly maintained proportions of each granite block, large or small—and all this marvellous structure was the product of the rude granite veins in The Gore! That adamantine mixture of gneiss and quartz, prepared in nature's laboratory throughout millions of years, was now furnishing the rock which, beneath human manipulation, was flowering into the great cathedral! And that perfect whole was ideaed first in the brain of man, and a sketch of it transferred by the sun itself to the blue paper which lay on the table!

What a combination and transmutation of those forceful powers that originate in the Unnamable!

The manager entered, passed into the next room and, sitting down at his desk, began to make notes on a pad. At a sign from the two men, the stranger followed him, cap in hand.

The manager spoke without looking at him:—"Well?"

"I'd like a job in the sheds."

At the sound of that voice, the manager glanced up quickly, keenly. He saw before him a man evidently prematurely gray. The broad shoulders bowed slightly as if from long-continued work involving much stooping. He looked at the hands; they were rough, calloused with toil, the knuckles spread, the nails broken and worn. Then he looked again into the face; that puzzled him. It was smooth-shaven, square in outline and rather thin, but the color was good; the eyes—what eyes!

The manager found himself wondering if there were a pair to match them in the wide world. They were slightly sunken, large, blue, of a depth and beauty and clarity rarely seen in that color. Within them, as if at home, dwelt an expression of inner quiet, and sadness combined with strength and firmness. It was not easy to look long into them without wanting to grasp the possessor's hand in fellowship. They smiled, too, as the manager continued to stare. That broke the spell; they were undeniably human. The manager smiled in response.

"Learned your trade?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been working at it?"

"Between six and seven years."

"Any tools with you?"

"No."

"Union man?"

"No."

"Hm-m."

The manager chewed the handle of his pen, and thought something out with himself; his eyes were on the pad before him.

"We've got to take on a lot of new men for the next two years—as many as we can of skilled workmen. The break will have to be made sometime. Anyhow, if you'll risk it they've got a job for you in Shed Number Two—cutting and squaring for a while—forty cents an hour—eight hour day. I'll telephone to the boss if you want it."

"I do."

He took up the desk-telephone and gave his message.

"It's all right." He drew out a ledger from beneath the desk. "What's your letter?"

"Letter?" The man looked startled for a moment.

"Yes, initial of your last name."

"G."

The manager found the letter, thrust in his finger, opened the page indicated and shoved the book over the desk towards the applicant. He handed him his pen.

"Write your name, your age, and what you're native of." He indicated the columns.

The man took the pen. He seemed at first slightly awkward in handling it. The entry he made was as follows:

"Louis C. Googe—thirty-four—United States."

The manager glanced at it. "That's a common enough name in Maine and these parts," he said. Then he pointed through the window. "That's the shed over there—the middle one. The boss'll give you some tools till you get yours."

"Thank you." The man put on his cap and went out.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" was all the manager said as he looked after the applicant. Then he rose, went to the office door and watched the man making his way through the stone-yards towards the sheds. "Well, boys," he said further, turning to the two men bending over the plans, "that suit ain't exactly a misfit, but it hasn't seen the light of day for a good many years—and it's the same with the man. What in thunder is he doing in the sheds! Did he say anything specially to you before I came in?"

"No; only he seemed mighty interested in the plans, examined the detail of some of them—as if he knew."

"We'll keep our eyes on him." The manager went back to his desk.

---

IV

Perhaps the dreariest environment imaginable is a stone-cutters' shed on a bleak day in the first week in March. The large ones stretching along the north shore of Lake Mesantic are no exception to this statement. A high wind from the northeast was driving before it particles of ice, and now and then a snow flurry. It penetrated every crack and crevice of the huge buildings, the second and largest of which covered a ground space of more than an acre. Every gust made itself both felt and heard among the rafters. Near the great doors the granite dust whirled in eddies.

At this hour in the afternoon Shed Number Two was a study in black and gray and white. Gray dust several inches thick spread underfoot; all about were gray walls, gray and white granite piles, gray columns, arches, uncut blocks, heaps of granite waste, gray workmen in gray blouses and canvas aprons covered with gray dust. In one corner towered the huge gray-black McDonald machine in mighty strength, its multiple revolving arms furnished with gigantic iron fists which manipulate the unyielding granite with Herculean automatonism—an invention of the film-like brain of man to conquer in a few minutes the work of nature's Æons! Gray-black overhead stretched the running rails for the monster electric travelling crane; some men crawling out on them looked like monkeys. Here and there might be seen the small insignificant "Lewis Key"—a thing that may be held on a woman's palm—sustaining a granite weight of many tons.

There were three hundred men at work in this shed, and the ringing chip-chip-chipping monotone from the hundreds of hammers and chisels, filled the great space with industry's wordless song that has its perfect harmony for him who listens with open ears and expansive mind.

Jim McCann was at work near the shed doors which had been opened several times since one o'clock to admit the flat cars with the granite. He was alternately blowing on his benumbed fingers and cursing the doors and the draught that was chilling him to the marrow. The granite dust was swirling about his legs and rising into his nostrils. It lacked a half-hour to four.

Two cars rolled in silently.

"Shut thim damned doors, man!" he shouted across to the door-tender; "God kape us but we' it's our last death we'll be ketchin' before we can clane out our lungs o' the dust we've swallowed the day. It's after bein' wan damned slitherin' whorl of grit in the nose of me since eight the morn."

He struck hard on his chisel and a spark flew. A workman, an Italian, laughed.

"That's arll-rright, Jim—fire up!"

"You kape shet," growled McCann. He was unfriendly as a rule to the Dagos. "It's in me blood," was his only excuse.

"An' if it's a firin' ye be after," he continued, "ye'll get it shurre if ye lave off workin' to warm up yer tongue wid such sass.—Shut thim doors!" he shouted again; but a gust of wind failed to carry his voice in the desired direction.

In the swirling roar and the small dust-spout that followed in its wake, Jim and the workmen in his cold section were aware of a man who had been half-blown in with the whirling dust. He took shelter for a moment by the inner wall. The foreman saw him and recognized him for the man who, the manager had just telephoned, was coming over from the office. He came forward to meet him.

"You're the man who has just taken on a job in Shed Number Two?"

"Yes."

The foreman signed to one of the men and told him to bring an extra set of tools.

"Here's your section," he said indicating McCann's; "you can begin on this block—just squaring it for to-night."

The man took his tools with a "Thank you," and went to work. The others watched him furtively, as Jim told Maggie afterwards "from the tail of me eye."

He knew his work. They soon saw that. Every stroke told. The doors were shut at last and the electric lights turned on. Up to the stroke of four the men worked like automatons—chip-chip-chipping. Now and then there was some chaffing, good-natured if rough.

The little Canuck, who by dint of running had caught the car, was working nearby. McCann called out to him:

"I say, Antwine, where you'd be after gettin' that cap with the monkey ears?"

"Bah gosh, Ah have get dis À Mo'real—at good marchÉ—sheep." He stroked the small skin earlaps caressingly with one hand, then spat upon his palm and fell to work again.

"Montreal is it? When did you go?"

"Ah was went tree day—le PÈre HonorÉ tol' mah Ah better was go to mon maÎtre; he was dead las' week."

"Wot yer givin' us, Antwine? Three days to see yer dead mater an' lavin' yer stiddy job for the likes of him, an' good luck yer come back this afternoon or the new man 'ud 'a' had it."

"Ah, non—ah, non! De boss haf tol' mah, Ah was keep mah shob. Ah, non—ah, non. Ah was went pour l'amour de PÈre HonorÉ."

"Damn yer lingo—shpake English, I tell you."

Antoine grinned and shook his head.

"Wot yer givin' us about his Riverince, eh?"

"Le PÈre HonorÉ, hein? Ah-h-h-rr, le bon PÈre HonorÉ! Attendez—he tol' mah Ah was best non raconter—mais, Ah raconte you, Shim—"

"Go ahead, Johnny Frog; let's hear."

"Ah was been lee'l garÇon—lee'l bÉbÉ, no pÈre; ma mÈre was been—how you say?—gypsee À cheval, hein?" he appealed to McCann.

"You mane a gypsy that rides round the counthry?"

Antoine nodded emphatically. "Yah—oui, gypsee À cheval, an' bars—"

"Bears?"

"Mais oui, bruins—bars; pour les faire dancer—"

"You mane your mother was a gypsy that went round the counthry showin' off dancin' bears?"

"Yah-oui. Ah mane so. She haf been seek—malade—how you say, petite vÉrole—so like de PÈre HonorÉ?" He made with his forefinger dents in his face and forehead.

"An' is it the shmall pox yer mane?"

"Yah-oui, shmall pookes. She was haf it, an' tout le monde—how you say?—efferybodyee was haf fear. She was haf nottin' to eat—nottin' to drrink; le PÈre HonorÉ was fin' her in de bois—forÊt, an' was been tak' ma pauvre mÈre in hees ahrms, an' he place her in de sugair-house, an' il l'a soignÉe—how you say?" He appealed to the Italian whose interest was on the increase.

"Nurrsed?"

"Yah—oui, nurrsed her, an' moi aussi—lee'l bÉbÉ'—"

"D' yer mane his Riverince nursed you and yer mother through the shmall pox?" demanded McCann. Several of the workmen stopped short with hammers uplifted to hear Antoine's answer.

"Mais oui, il l'a soignÉe jusqu'À ce qu'elle was been dead; he l'a enterrÉe—place in de terre—airth, an' moi he haf place chez un farmyer À Mo'real. An' le PÈre HonorÉ was tak' la petite vÉrole—shmall pookes in de sugair-house, an' de farmyer was gif him to eat an' to drrink par la porte—de door; de farmyer haf non passÉ par de door. Le PÈre HonorÉ m'a sauvÉ—haf safe, hein? An' Ah was been work ten, twenty, dirty year, Ah tink. Ah gagne—gain, hein?—two hundert piÈces. Ah been come to de quairries, pour l'amour de bon PÈre HonorÉ qui m'a safe, hein? Ah be trÈs content; Ah gagne, gain two, tree piÈces—dollaires—par jour."

He nodded at one and all, his gold half-moon earrings twinkling in his evident satisfaction with himself and "le bon PÈre HonorÉ."

The men were silent. Jim McCann's eyes were blurred with tears. The thought of his own six-months boy presented itself in contrast to the small waif in the Canada woods and the dying gypsy mother, nursed by the priest who had christened his own little Billy.

"It's a bad night for the lecture," said a Scotchman, and broke therewith the emotional spell that was holding the men who had made out the principal points of Antoine's story.

"Yes, but Father HonorÉ says it's all about the cathedrals, an' not many will want to miss it," said another. "They say there's a crowd coming down from the quarries to-night to hear it."

"Faith, an' it's Mr. Van Ostend will be after havin' to put on an a trailer to his new hall," said McCann; "the b'ys know a good thing whin they see it, an' we was like to smother, the whole kit of us, whin they had the last pitchers of them mountins in Alasky on the sheet. It's the stairioptican that takes best wid the b'ys."

The four o'clock whistle began to sound. Three hundred chisels and hammers were dropped on the instant. The men hurried to the doors that were opened their full width to give egress to the hastening throngs. They streamed out; there was laughing and chaffing; now and then, among the younger ones, some good-natured fisticuffs were exchanged. Many sought the electrics to The Gore; others took the car to The Corners. From the three sheds, the power-house, the engine-house, the office, the dark files streamed forth from their toil. Within fifteen minutes the lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the sz-szz-szzz of the vanishing trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down rapidly over frozen field and ice-rimmed lake.

---

V

Champney Googe left the shed with the rest; no one spoke to him, although many a curious look was turned his way when he had passed, and he spoke to no one. He waited for a car to Flamsted. There he got out. He found a restaurant near The Greenbush and ordered something to eat. Afterwards he went about the town, changed almost beyond recognition. He saw no face he knew. There were foreigners everywhere—men who were to be the fathers of the future American race. A fairly large opera house attracted his attention; it was evidently new. He looked for the year—1901. A little farther on he found the hall, built, so he had gathered from the few words among the men in the sheds, by Mr. Van Ostend. The name was on the lintel: "Flamsted Quarries Hall." Every few minutes an electric tram went whizzing through Main Street towards The Bow. Crowds of young people were on the street.

He looked upon all he saw almost indifferently, feeling little, caring little. It was as if a mental and spiritual numbness had possession of every faculty except the manual; he felt at home only while he was working for that short half-hour in the shed. He was not at ease here among this merry careless crowd. He stopped to look in at the windows of a large fine shop for fruits and groceries; he glanced up at the sign:—"Poggi and Company."

"Poggi—Poggi" he said to himself; he was thinking it out. "Luigi Poggi—Luigi—Ah!" It was a long-drawn breath. He had found his clew.

He heard again that cry: "Champney,—O Champney! what has he done to you!" The night came back to him in all its detail. It sickened him.

He was about to turn from the window and seek the quiet of The Bow until the hall should be open—at "sharp seven" he heard the men say—when a woman passed him and entered the shop. She took a seat at the counter just inside the show-window. He stood gazing at her, unable to move his eyes from the form, the face. It was she—Aileen!

The sickening feeling increased for a moment, then it gave place to strange electric currents that passed and repassed through every nerve. It was a sensation as if his whole body—flesh, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, every lobe of his brain, every cell within each lobe, had been, as the saying is of an arm or leg, "asleep" and was now "coming to." The tingling sensation increased almost to torture; but he could not move. That face held him.

He must get away before she came out! That was his one thought. The first torment of awakening sensation to a new life was passing. He advanced a foot, then the other; he moved slowly, but he moved at last. He walked on down the street, not up towards The Bow as he had intended; walked on past The Greenbush towards The Corners; walked on and on till the nightmare of this awakening from a nearly seven-years abnormal sleep of feeling was over. Then he turned back to the town. The town clock was striking seven. The men were entering the hall by tens and twenties.

He took his seat in a corner beneath the shadow of a large gallery at the back, over the entrance.

There were only men admitted. He looked upon the hundreds assembled, and realized for the first time in more than six years that he was again a free man among free men. He drew a long breath of relief, of realization.

At a quarter past seven Father HonorÉ made his appearance on the platform. The men settled at once into silence, and the priest began without preface:

"My friends, we will take up to-night what we may call the Brotherhood of Stone."

The men looked at one another and smiled. Here was something new.

"That is the right thought for all of you to take with you into the quarries and the sheds. Don't forget it!"

He made certain distinct pauses after a few sentences. This was done with intention; for the men before him were of various nationalities, although he called this his "English night." But many were learning and understood imperfectly; it was for them he paused frequently. He wanted to give them time to take in what he was saying. Sometimes he repeated his words in Italian, in French, that the foreigners might better comprehend his meaning.

"Perhaps some of you have worked in the limestone quarries on the Bay? All who have hold up hands."

A hundred hands, perhaps more, were raised.

"Any worked in the marble quarries of Vermont?"

A dozen or more Canucks waved their hands vigorously.

"Here are three pieces—limestone, marble, and granite." He held up specimens of the three. "All of them are well known to most of you. Now mark what I say of these three:—first, the limestone gets burned principally; second, the marble gets sculptured principally; third, the granite gets hammered and chiselled principally. Fire, chisel, and hammer at work on these three rocks; but, they are all quarried first. This fact of their being quarried puts them in the Brotherhood—of Labor."

The men nudged one another, and nodded emphatically.

"They are all three taken from the crust of the earth; this Earth is to them the earth-mother. Now mark again what I say:—this fact of their common earth-mother puts them in the Brotherhood—of Kin."

He took up three specimens of quartz crystals.

"This quartz crystal"—he turned it in the light, and the hexagonal prisms caught and reflected dazzling rays—"I found in the limestone quarry on the Bay. This," he took up another smaller one, "I found after a long search in the marble quarries of Vermont. This here," he held up a third, a smaller, less brilliant, less perfect one—"I took out of our upper quarry after a three weeks' search for it.

"This fact, that these rocks, although of different market value and put to different uses, may yield the same perfect crystal, puts the limestone, the marble, the granite in the Brotherhood—of Equality.

"In our other talks, we have named the elements of each rock, and given some study to each. We have found that some of their elements are the basic elements of our own mortal frames—our bodies have a common earth-mother with these stones.

"This last fact puts them in the Brotherhood—of Man."

The seven hundred men showed their appreciation of the point made by prolonged applause.

"Now I want to make clear to you that, although these rocks have different market values, are put to different uses, the real value for us this evening consists in the fact that each, in its own place, can yield a crystal equal in purity to the others.—Remember this the next time you go to work in the quarries and the sheds."

He laid aside the specimens.

"We had a talk last month about the guilds of four hundred years ago. I asked you then to look upon yourselves as members of a great twentieth century working guild. Have you done it? Has every man, who was present then, said since, when hewing a foundation stone, a block for a bridge abutment, a corner-stone for a cathedral or a railroad station, a cap-stone for a monument, a milestone, a lintel for a door, a hearthstone or a step for an altar, 'I belong to the great guild of the makers of this country; I quarry and hew the rock that lays the enduring bed for the iron or electric horses which rush from sea to sea and carry the burden of humanity'?—Think of it, men! Yours are the hands that make this great track of commerce possible. Yours are the hands that curve the stones, afterwards reared into noble arches beneath which the people assemble to do God reverence. Yours are the hands that square the deep foundations of the great bridges which, like the Brooklyn, cross high in mid-air from shore to shore! Have you said this? Have you done it?"

"Ay, ay.—Sure.—We done it." The murmuring assent was polyglot.

"Very well—see that you keep on doing it, and show that you do it by the good work you furnish."

He motioned to the manipulators in the gallery to make ready for the stereopticon views. The blank blinding round played erratically on the curtain. The entire audience sat expectant.

There was flashed upon the screen the interior of a Canadian "cabin." The family were at supper; the whole interior, simple and homely, was indicative of warmth and cheerful family life.

The Canucks in the audience lost their heads. The clapping was frantic. Father HonorÉ smiled. He tapped the portrayed wall with the end of his pointer.

"This is comfort—no cold can penetrate these walls; they are double plastered. Credit limestone with that!"

The audience showed its appreciation in no uncertain way.

"The crystal—can any one see that—find that in this interior?"

The men were silent. Father HonorÉ was pointing to the mother and her child; the father was holding out his arms to the little one who, with loving impatience, was reaching away from his mother over the table to his father. They comprehended the priest's thought in the lesson of the limestone:—the love and trust of the human. No words were needed. An emotional silence made itself felt.

The picture shifted. There was thrown upon the screen the marble Cathedral of Milan. A murmur of delight ran through the house.

"Here we have the limestone in the form of marble. Its beauty is the price of unremitting toil. This, too, belongs in the brotherhoods of labor, kin, and equality.—Do you find the crystal?"

His pointer swept the hierarchy of statues on the roof, upwards to the cross on the pinnacle, where it rested.

"This crystal is the symbol of what inspires and glorifies humanity. The crystal is yours, men, if with believing hearts you are willing to say 'Our Father' in the face of His works."

He paused a moment. It was an understood thing in the semi-monthly talks, that the men were free to ask questions and to express an opinion, even, at times, to argue a point. The men's eyes were fixed with keen appreciation on the marble beauty before them, when a voice broke the silence.

"That sounds all right enough, your Reverence, what you've said about 'Our Father' and the brotherhoods, but there's many a man says it that won't own me for a brother. There's a weak joint somewhere—and no offence meant."

Some of the men applauded.

Father HonorÉ turned from the screen and faced the men; his eyes flashed. The audience loved to see him in this mood, for they knew by experience that he was generally able to meet his adversary, and no odds given or taken.

"That's you, is it, Szchenetzy?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Do you remember in last month's talk that I showed you the Dolomites—the curious mountains of the Tyrol?—and in connection with those the Brenner Pass?"

"Yes."

"Well, something like seven hundred years ago a poor man, a poet and travelling musician, was riding over that pass and down into that very region of the Dolomites. He made his living by stopping at the stronghold-castles of those times and entertaining the powerful of the earth by singing his poems set to music of his own making. Sometimes he got a suit of cast-off clothes in payment; sometimes only bed and board for a time. But he kept on singing his little poems and making more of them as he grew rich in experience of men and things; for he never grew rich in gold—money was the last thing they ever gave him. So he continued long his wandering life, singing his songs in courtyard and castle hall until they sang their way into the hearts of the men of his generation. And while he wandered, he gained a wonderful knowledge of life and its ways among rich and poor, high and low; and, pondering the things he had seen and the many ways of this world, he said to himself, that day when he was riding over the Brenner Pass, the same thing that you have just said—in almost the same words:—'Many a man calls God "Father" who won't acknowledge me for a brother.'

"I don't know how he reconciled facts—for your fact seems plain enough—nor do I know how you can reconcile them; but what I do know is this:—that man, poor in this world's goods, but rich in experience and in a natural endowment of poetic thought and musical ability, kept on making poems, kept on singing them, despite that fact to which he had given expression as he fared over the Brenner; despite the fact that a suit of cast-off clothes was all he got for his entertainment of those who would not call him 'brother.' Discouraged at times—for he was very human—he kept on giving the best that was in him, doing the work appointed for him in this world—and doing it with a whole heart Godwards and Christwards, despite his poverty, despite the broken promises of the great to reward him pecuniarily, despite the world, despite facts, Szchenetzy! He sang when he was young of earthly love and in middle age of heavenly love, and his songs are cherished, for their beauty of wisdom and love, in the hearts of men to this day."

He smiled genially across the sea of faces to Szchenetzy.

"Come up some night with your violin, Szchenetzy, and we will try over some of those very songs that the Germans have set to music of their own, those words of Walter of the Bird-Meadow—so they called him then, and men keep on calling him that even to this day."

He turned again to the screen.

"What is to be thrown on the screen now—in rapid succession for our hour is brief—I call our Marble Quarry. Just think of it! quarried by the same hard work which you all know, by which you earn your daily bread; sculptured into forms of exceeding beauty by the same hard toil of other hands. And behind all the toil there is the soul of art, ever seeking expression through the human instrument of the practised hand that quarries, then sculptures, then places, and builds! I shall give a word or two of explanation in regard to time and locality; next month we will take the subjects one by one."

There flashed upon the screen and in quick succession, although the men protested and begged for an extension of exposures, the noble Pisan group and Niccola Pisano's pulpit in the baptistery—the horses from the Parthenon frieze—the Zeus group from the great altar at Pergamos—Theseus and the Centaur—the Wrestlers—the Discus Thrower and, last, the exquisite little church of Saint Mary of the Thorn,—the Arno's jewel, the seafarers' own,—that looks out over the Pisan waters to the Mediterranean.

It was a magnificent showing. No words from Father HonorÉ were needed to bring home to his audience the lesson of the Marble Quarry.

"I call the next series, which will be shown without explanation and merely named, other members of the Brotherhood of Stone. We study them separately later on in the summer."

The cathedrals of York, Amiens, Westminster, Cologne, Mayence, St. Mark's—a noble array of man's handiwork, were thrown upon the screen. The men showed their appreciation by thunderous applause.

The screen was again a blank; then it filled suddenly with the great Upper Quarry in The Gore. The granite ledges sloped upward to meet the blue of the sky. The great steel derricks and their crisscrossing cables cast curiously foreshortened shadows on the gleaming white expanse. Here and there a group of men showed dark against a ledge. In the centre, one of the monster derricks held suspended in its chains a forty-ton block of granite just lifted from its eternal bed. Beside it a workman showed like a pigmy.

Some one proposed a three times three for the home quarries. The men rose to their feet and the cheers were given with a will. The ringing echo of the last had not died away when the quarry vanished, and in its place stood the finished cathedral of A.—the work which the hands of those present were to create. It was a reproduction of the architect's water-color sketch.

The men still remained standing; they gave no outward expression to their admiration; that, indeed, although evident in their faces, was overshadowed by something like awe. Their hands were to be the instruments by which this great creation of the mind of man should become a fact. Without those hands the architect's idea could not be materialized; without the "idea" their daily work would fail.

The truth went home to each man present—even to that unknown one beneath the gallery who, when the men had risen to cheer, shrank farther into his dark corner and drew short sharp breaths. The Past would not down at his bidding; he was beginning to feel his weakness when he had most need of strength.

He did not hear Father HonorÉ's parting words:—"Here you find the third crystal—strength, solidity, the bedrock of endeavor. Take these three home with you:—the pure crystal of human love and trust, the heart believing in its Maker, the strength of good character. There you have the three that make for equality in this world—and nothing else does. Good night, my friends."

---

VI

Father HonorÉ got home from the lecture a little before nine. He renewed the fire, drew up a chair to the hearth, took his violin from its case and, seating himself before the springing blaze, made ready to play for a while in the firelight. This was always his refreshment after a successful evening with the men. He drew his thumb along the bow—

There was a knock at the door. He rose and flung it wide with a human enough gesture of impatience; his well-earned rest was disturbed too soon. He failed to recognize the man who was standing bareheaded on the step.

"Father HonorÉ, I've come home—don't you know me, Champney?"

There was no word in response, but his hands were grasped hard—he was drawn into the room—the door was shut on the chill wind of that March night. Then the two men stood silent, gazing into each other's eyes, while the firelight leaped and showed to each the other's face—the priest's working with a powerful emotion he was struggling to control; Champney Googe's apparently calm, but in reality tense with anxiety. He spoke first:

"I want to know about my mother—is she well?"

Father HonorÉ found his voice, an uncertain one but emphatic; it left no room for further anxiety in the questioner's mind.

"Yes, well, thank God, and looking forward to this—but it's so soon! I don't understand—when did you come?"

He kept one hand on Champney's as if fearing to lose him, with the other he pulled forward a chair from the wall and placed it near his own; he sat down and drew Champney into the other beside him.

"I came up on the afternoon train; I got out yesterday."

"It's so unexpected. The chaplain wrote me last month that there was a prospect of this within the next six months, but I had no idea it would be so soon—neither, I am sure, had he."

"Nor I—I don't know that I feel sure of it yet. Has my mother any idea of this?"

"I wasn't at liberty to tell her—the communication was confidential. Still she knows that it is customary to shorten the—" he caught up his words.

"—Term for exemplary conduct?" Champney finished for him.

"Yes. I can't realize this, Champney; it's six years and four months—"

"Years—months! You might say six eternities. Do you know, I can't get used to it—the freedom, I mean. At times during these last twenty-four hours, I have actually felt lost without the work, the routine—the solitude." He sighed heavily and spoke further, but as if to himself:

"Last Thanksgiving Day we were all together—eight hundred of us in the assembly room for the exercises. Two men get pardoned out on that day, and the two who were set free were in for manslaughter—one for twenty years, the other for life. They had been in eighteen years. I watched their faces when their numbers were called; they stepped forward to the platform and were told of their pardon. There wasn't a sign of comprehension, not a movement of a muscle, the twitch of an eyelid—simply a dead stolid stare. The truth is, they were benumbed as to feeling, incapable of comprehending anything, of initiating anything, as I was till—till this afternoon; then I began to live, to feel again."

"That's only natural. I've heard other men say the same thing. You'll recover tone here among your own—your friends and other men."

"Have I any?—I mean outside of you and my mother?" he asked in a low voice, but subdued eagerness was audible in it.

"Have you any? Why, man, a friend is a friend for life—and beyond. Who was it put it thus: 'Said one: I would go up to the gates of hell with a friend.—Said the other: I would go in.' That last is the kind you have here in Flamsted, Champney."

The other turned away his face that the firelight might not betray him.

"It's too much—it's too much; I don't deserve it."

"Champney, when you decided of your own accord to expiate in the manner you have through these six years, do you think your friends—and others—didn't recognize your manhood? And didn't you resolve at that time to 'put aside' those things that were behind you once and forever?—clear your life of the clogging part?"

"Yes,—but others won't—"

"Never mind others—you are working out your own salvation."

"But it's going to be harder than I thought—I find I am beginning to dread to meet people—everything is so changed. It's going to be harder than I realized to carry out that resolution. The Past won't down—everything is so changed—everything—"

Father HonorÉ rose to turn on the electric lights. He did not take his seat again, but stood on the hearth, back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. The clear light from the shaded bulbs shone full upon the face of the man before him, and the priest, searching that face to read its record, saw set upon it, and his heart contracted at the sight, the indelible seal of six years of penal servitude. The close-cut hair was gray; the brow was marked by two horizontal furrows; the cheeks were deeply lined; and the broad shoulders—they were bent. Formerly he stood before the priest with level eyes, now he was shorter by an inch of the six feet that were once his. He noticed the hands—the hands of the day-laborer.

He managed to reply to Champney's last remark without betraying the emotion that threatened to master him.

"Outwardly, yes; things have changed and will continue to change. The town is making vast strides towards citizenship. But you will find those you know the same—only grown in grace, I hope, with the years; even Mr. Wiggins is convinced by this time that the foreigners are not barbarians."

Champney smiled. "It was rough on Elmer Wiggins at first."

"Yes, but things are smoothing out gradually, and as a son of Maine he has too much common sense at bottom to swim against the current. And there's old Joel Quimber—I never see him that he doesn't tell me he is marking off the days in his 'almanack,' he calls it, in anticipation of your return."

"Dear old Jo!—No!—Is that true? Old Jo doing that?"

"To be sure, why not? And there's Octavius Buzzby—I don't think he would mind my telling you now—indeed, I don't believe he'd have the courage to tell you himself—" Father HonorÉ smiled happily, for he saw in Champney's face the light of awakening interest in the common life of humanity, and he felt a prolongation of this chat would clear the atmosphere of over-powering emotion,—"there have never three months passed by these last six years that he hasn't deposited half of his quarterly salary with Emlie in the bank in your name—"

"Oh, don't—don't! I can't bear it—dear old Tave—" he groaned rather than spoke; the blood mounted to his temples, but his friend proved merciless.

"And there's Luigi Poggi! I don't know but he will make you a proposition, when he knows you are at home, to enter into partnership with him and young Caukins—the Colonel's fourth eldest. Champney, he wants to atone—he has told me so—"

"Is—is he married?"

Father HonorÉ noticed that his lips suddenly went dry and he swallowed hard after his question.

"No," the priest hastened to say, then he hesitated; he was wondering how far it was safe to probe; "but it is my strong impression that he is thinking seriously of it—a lovely girl, too, she is—" he saw the man's face before him go white, the jaw set like a vise—"little Dulcie Caukins, you remember her?"

Champney nodded and wet his lips.

"He has been thrown a good deal with the Caukinses since he took their son into partnership; the Colonel's boys are all doing well. Romanzo is in New York."

"Still with the Company?"

"Yes, in the main office. He married in that city two years ago—rather well, I hear, but Mrs. Caukins is not reconciled yet. Now, there's a friend! You don't know the depth of her feeling for you—but she has shown it by worshipping your mother."

Champney Googe's eyes filled to overflowing, but he squeezed the springing drops between his eyelids, and asked with lively interest:

"Why isn't Mrs. Caukins reconciled?"

"Well, because—I suppose it's no secret now, at least Mrs. Caukins has never made one of it, in fact, has aired the subject pretty thoroughly, you know her way—"

Champney looked up and smiled. "I'm glad she hasn't changed."

"But of course you don't know it. The fact is she had set heart on having for a daughter-in-law Aileen Armagh—you remember little Aileen?"

Champney Googe's hands closed spasmodically on the arms of his chair. To cover this involuntary movement, he leaned forward suddenly and kicked a burning brand, that had fallen on the hearth, back into the fireplace. A shower of sparks flew up chimney.

Father HonorÉ went on without waiting for the answer he knew would not be forthcoming: "Aileen gave me a fright the other day. I met her on the street, and she took that occasion, in the midst of a good deal of noise and confusion, to inform me with her usual vivacity of manner that she was to be housekeeper to a man—'a job for life,' she added with the old mischief dancing in her eyes and the merry laugh that is a tonic for the blues. Upon my asking her gravely who was the fortunate man—for I had no one in mind and feared some impulsive decision—she pursed her lips, hesitated a moment, and, manufacturing a charming blush, said:—'I don't mind telling you; it's Mr. Octavius Buzzby. I'm to be his housekeeper for life and take care of him in his old age after his work and mine is finished at Champo.' I confess, I was relieved."

"My aunt is still living, then?" Champney asked with more eagerness and energy than the occasion demanded. His eyes shone with suppressed excitement, and ever-awakening life animated every feature. Father HonorÉ, noting the sudden change, read again, as once six years before, deep into this man's heart.

"Yes, but it is death in life. Aileen is still with her—faithful as the sun, but rebelling at times as is only natural. The girl gave promise of rich womanhood, but even you would wonder at such fine development in such an environment of continual invalidism. Mrs. Champney has had two strokes of paralysis; it is only a question of time."

"There is one who never was my friend—I've often wondered why."

Into the priest's inner vision flashed that evening before his departure for New York—the bedroom—the mother—that confession—

"It looks that way, I admit, but I've thought sometimes she has cared for you far more than any one will ever know."

Champney started suddenly to his feet.

"What time is it? I must be going."

"Going?—You mean home—to-night?"

"Yes, I must go home. I came to ask you to go to my mother to prepare her for this—I dared not shock her by going unannounced. You'll go with me—you'll tell her?"

"At once."

He reached for his coat and turned off the lights. The two went out arm and arm into the March night. The wind was still rising.

"It's only half-past nine, and Mrs. Googe will be up; she is a busy woman."

"Tell me—" he drew his breath short—"what has my mother done all these years—how has she lived?"

"As every true woman lives—doing her full duty day by day, living in hope of this joy."

"But I mean what has she done to live—to provide for herself; she has kept the house?"

"To be sure, and by her own exertions. She has never been willing to accept pecuniary aid from any friend, not even from Mr. Buzzby, or the Colonel. I am in a position to know that Mr. Van Ostend did his best to persuade her to accept something just as a loan."

"But what has she been doing?"

"She has been taking the quarrymen for meals the last six years, Champney—at times she has had their families to board with her, as many as the house could accommodate."

The arm which his own held was withdrawn with a jerk. Champney Googe faced him: they were on the new iron bridge over the Rothel.

"You mean to say my mother—my mother, Aurora Googe, has been keeping a quarrymen's boarding-house all these years?"

"Yes; it is legitimate work."

"My mother—my mother—" he kept repeating as he stood motionless on the bridge. He seemed unable to grasp the fact for a moment; then he laid his hand heavily on Father HonorÉ's shoulder as if for support; he spoke low to himself, but the priest caught a few words:

"I thank Thee—thank—for life—work—"

He seemed to come gradually to himself, to recognize his whereabouts. He began to walk on, but very slowly.

"Father HonorÉ," he said, and his tone was deeply earnest but at the same time almost joyful, "I'm not going home to my mother empty-handed, I never intended to—I have work. I can work for her, free her from care, lift from her shoulders the burden of toil for my sake."

"What do you mean, Champney?"

"I made application to the manager of the Company this afternoon; I saw they were all strangers to me, and they took me on in the sheds—Shed Number Two. I went to work this afternoon. You see I know my trade; I learned it during the last six years. I can support her now—Oh—"

He stopped short just as they were leaving the bridge; raised his head to the black skies above him, reached upwards with both hands palm outwards—

"—I thank my Maker for these hands; I thank Him that I can labor with these hands; I thank Him for the strength of manhood that will enable me to toil with these hands; I thank Him for my knowledge of good and evil; I thank Him that I have 'won sight out of blindness—'" his eyes strained to the skies above The Gore.

The moon, struggling with the heavy drifting cloud-masses, broke through a confined ragged circle and, for a moment, its splendor shone upon the heights of The Gore; its effulgence paled the arc-lights in the quarries; a silver shaft glanced on the Rothel in its downward course, and afar touched the ruffled waters of Lake Mesantic....

---

"I'll stay here on the lawn," he said five minutes afterwards upon reaching the house. A light was burning in his mother's bedroom; another shone from her sitting-room on the first floor.

The priest entered without knocking; this house was open the year round to the frequent comers and goers among the workmen. He rapped at the sitting-room door. Mrs. Googe opened it.

"Why, Father HonorÉ, I didn't expect you to-night—didn't you have the—What is it?—oh, what is it!" she cried, for the priest's face betrayed him.

"Joyful news, Mrs. Googe,"—he let her read his face—"your son is a free man to-night."

There was no outcry on the mother's part; but her hands clasped each other till the nails showed white.

"Where is he now?"

"Here, in Flamsted—"

"Let me go—let me go to him—"

"He has come to you—he is just outside—"

She was past him with a rush—at the door—on the porch—

"Champney!—My son!—where are you?" she cried out into the night.

Her answer came on swift feet. He sprang up the steps two at a time, they were in each other's arms—then he had to be strong for both.

He led her in, half carrying her; placed her in a chair; knelt before her, chafing her hands....

Father HonorÉ made his escape; they were unconscious of his presence or his departure. He closed the front door softly behind him, and on feet shod with light-heartedness covered the road to his own house in a few minutes. He flung aside his coat, took his violin, and played and played till late into the night.

Two of the sisters of The Mystic Rose, who had been over to Quarry End Park nursing a sick quarryman's wife throughout the day, paused to listen as they passed the house. One of them was Sister Ste. Croix.

The violin exulted, rejoiced, sang of love heavenly, of love earthly, of all loves of life and nature; it sang of repentance, of expiation, of salvation—

"I can bear no more," whispered Sister Ste. Croix to her companion, and the hand she laid on the one that was raised to hush her, was not only cold, it was damp with the sweat of the agony of remembrance.

The strains of the violin's song accompanied them to their own door.

---

VII

The Saturday-night frequenters of The Greenbush have changed with the passing years like all else in Flamsted. The Greenbush itself is no longer a hostelry, but a cosy club-house purveyed for, to the satisfaction of every member, by its old landlord, Augustus Buzzby. The Club's membership, of both young and old men, is large and increasing with the growth of the town; but the old frequenters of The Greenbush bar-room head the list—Colonel Caukins and Octavius Buzzby paying the annual dues of their first charter member, old Joel Quimber, now in his eighty-seventh year.

The former office is a grill room, and made one with the back parlor, now the club restaurant. On this Saturday night in March, the white-capped chef—Augustus prided himself in keeping abreast the times—was busy in the grill room, and Augustus himself was superintending the laying of a round table for ten. The Colonel was to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday by giving a little supper.

"Nothing elaborate, Buzzby," he said a week before the event, "a fine saddle of mutton—Southdown—some salmon trout, a stiff bouillon for Quimber, you know his masticatory apparatus is no longer equal to this whole occasion, and a chive salad. The cake Mrs. Caukins elects to provide herself, and I need not assure you, who know her culinary powers, that it will be a ne plus ultra of a cake, both in material and execution; fruits, coffee and cheese—Roquefort. Your accomplished chef can fill in the interstices. Here are the cards—Quimber at my right, if you please."

Augustus looked at the cards and smiled.

"All the old ones included, I see, Colonel," he ran over the names, "Quimber, Tave, Elmer Wiggins, Emlie, Poggi and Caukins"—he laughed outright; "that's a good firm, Colonel," he said slyly, and the Colonel smiled his appreciation of the gentle insinuation—"the manager at the sheds, and the new boss of the Upper Quarry?" He looked inquiringly at the Colonel on reading the last name.

"That's all right, Buzzby; he's due here next Saturday, the festal day; and I want to give some substantial expression to him, as a stranger and neighbor, of Flamsted's hospitality."

Augustus nodded approval, and continued: "And me! Thank you kindly, Colonel, but you'll have to excuse me this time. I want everything to go right on this special occasion. I'll join you with a pipe afterwards."

"As you please, Buzzby, only make it a cigar; and consider yourself included in the spirit if not in the flesh. Nine sharp."

At a quarter of nine, just as Augustus finished putting the last touch to an already perfect table, the Colonel made his appearance at The Greenbush, a pasteboard box containing a dozen boutonniÈres under his arm. He laid one on the table cloth by each plate, and stood back to enjoy the effect. He rubbed his hands softly in appreciation of the "color scheme" as he termed it—a phrase that puzzled Augustus. He saw no "scheme" and very little "color" in the dark-wainscoted room, except the cheerful fire on the hearth and some heavy red half-curtains at the windows to shut out the cold and dark of this March night. The walls were white; the grill of dark wood, and the floor painted dark brown. But the red carnations on the snow-white damask did somehow "touch the whole thing up," as he confided later to his brother.

The Colonel's welcome to his companions was none the less cordial because he repressed his usual flow of eloquence till "the cloth should be removed." He purposed then to spring a surprise, oratorical and otherwise, on those assembled.

After the various toasts,—all given and drunk in sweet cider made for the occasion from Northern Spies, the Colonel being prohibitive for example's sake,—the good wishes for many prospective birthdays and prosperous years, the Colonel filled his glass to the brim and, holding it in his left hand, literally rose to the occasion.

"Gentlemen," he began in full chest tones, "some fourteen years ago, five of us now present were wont to discuss in the old office of this hospitable hostelry, now the famous grill room of the Club, the Invasion of the New—the opening of the great Flamsted Quarries—the migrations of the nations hitherwards and the consequent prospective industrial development of our native village."

He paused and looked about him impressively; finally his eye settled sternly on Elmer Wiggins who, satisfied inwardly with the choice and bounteous supper provided by the Colonel, had made up his mind to "stand fire", as he said afterwards to Augustus.

The Colonel resumed his speech, his voice acquiring as he proceeded a volume and depth that carried it far beyond the grill room's walls to the ears of edified passers on the street:

"There were those among us who maintained—in the face of extreme opposition, I am sorry to say—that this town of Flamsted would soon make itself a factor in the vast industrial life of our marvellous country. In retrospect, I reflect that those who had this faith, this trust in the resources of their native town, were looked upon with scorn; were subjected to personal derision; were termed, to put it mildly, 'mere dreamers'—if I am not mistaken, the original expression was 'darned boomers.' Mr. Wiggins, here, our esteemed wholesale and retail pharmacist, will correct me if I am wrong on this point—"

He paused again as if expecting an answer; nothing was forthcoming but a decidedly embarrassed "Hem," from the afore-named pharmacist. The Colonel was satisfied.

"Now, gentlemen, in refutation of that term—I will not repeat myself—and what it implied, after fourteen years, comparable to those seven fat kine of Pharaoh's dream, our town can point throughout the length and breadth of our land to its monumental works of art and utility that may well put to blush the renowned record of the Greeks and Romans."

Prolonged applause and a ringing cheer.

"All over our fair land the granite monoliths of Flamsted, beacon or battle, point heavenwards. The transcontinental roads, that track and nerve our country, cross and re-cross the raging torrents of western rivers on granite abutments from the Flamsted quarries! The laws, alike for the just and unjust,"—the Colonel did not perceive his slip, but Elmer Wiggins smiled to himself,—"are promulgated within the stately granite halls of the capitals of our statehood—Flamsted again! The gospel of praise and prayer will shortly resound beneath the arches of the choir and nave of the great granite cathedral—the product of the quarries in The Gore!"

Deafening applause, clinking of glasses, and cries of "Good! True—Hear—Hear!"

The Colonel beamed and gathered himself together with a visible effort for his peroration. He laid his hand on his heart.

"A man of feeling, gentlemen, has a heart. He is not oblivious either of the needs of his neighbor, his community, or the world in general. Although he is vulnerable to wounds in the house of his friends,"—a severe look falls upon Wiggins,—"he is not impervious to appeal for sympathy from without. I trust I have defined a man of feeling, gentlemen, a man of heart, as regards the world in general. And now, to make an abrupt descent from the abstract to the concrete, from the general to the particular, I will permit myself to say that those aspersions cast upon me fourteen years ago as a mere promoter, irrespective of my manhood, hurt me as a man of feeling—a man of heart.

"Sir—" he turned again to Elmer Wiggins who was apparently the lightning conductor for the Colonel's fourteen years of pent-up injury—"a father has his feelings. You are not a father—I draw no conclusions; but if you had been a father fourteen years ago in this very room, I would have trusted to your magnanimity not to give expression to your decided views on the subject of the native Americans' intermarriage with those of a race foreign to us. I assure you, sir, such a view not only narrows the mind, but constricts humanity, and ossifies the heart—that special organ by which the world, despite present-day detractors, lives and moves and has its being." (Murmuring assent.)

"But, sir, I believe you have come to see otherwise, else as my guest on this happy occasion, I should not permit myself to apply to you so personal a remark. And, gentlemen," the Colonel swelled visibly, but those nearest him caught the shimmer of a suspicious moisture in his eyes, "I am in a position to-night—this night whereon you have added to my happiness by your presence at this board—to repeat now what I said fourteen years ago in this very room: I consider myself honored in that a member of my immediate family, one very, very dear to me," his voice shook in spite of his effort to strengthen it, "is contemplating entering into the solemn estate of matrimony at no distant date with—a foreigner, gentlemen, but a naturalized citizen of our great and glorious United States. Gentlemen," he filled his glass again and held it high above his head,—"I give you with all my heart Mr. Luigi Poggi, an honored and prosperous citizen of Flamsted—my future son-in-law—the prospective husband of my youngest daughter, Dulcibella Caukins."

The company rose to a man, young Caukins assisting Quimber to his feet.

With loud and hearty acclaim they welcomed the new member of the Caukins family; they crowded about the Colonel, and no hand that grasped his and Luigi's in congratulation was firmer and more cordial than Elmer Wiggins'. The Colonel's smile expanded; he was satisfied—the old score was wiped out.

Afterwards with cigars and pipes they discussed for an hour the affairs of Flamsted. The influx of foreigners with their families was causing a shortage of houses and housing. Emlie proposed the establishment of a Loan and Mortgage Company to help out the newcomers. Poggi laid before them his plan for an Italian House to receive the unmarried men on their arrival.

"By the way," he said, turning to the new head of the Upper Quarry, "you brought up a crowd with you this afternoon, didn't you?—mostly my countrymen?"

"No, a mixed lot—about thirty. A few Scotch and English came up on the same train. Have they applied to you?" He addressed the manager of the Company's sheds.

"No. I think they'll be along Monday. I've noticed that those two nationalities generally have relations who house and look out for them when they come. But I had an application from an American just after the train came in; I don't often have that now."

"Did you take him on?" the Colonel asked between two puffs of his Havana.

"Yes; and he went to work in Shed Number Two. I confess he puzzles me."

"What was he like?" asked the head of the Upper Quarry.

"Tall, blue eyes, gray hair, but only thirty-four as the register showed—misfit clothes—"

"That's the one—he came up in the train with me. I noticed him in the car. I don't believe he moved a muscle all the way up. I couldn't make him out, could you?"

"Well, no, I couldn't. By the way, Colonel, I noticed the name he entered was a familiar one in this part of Maine—Googe—"

"Googe!" The Colonel looked at the speaker in amazement; "did he give his first name?"

"Yes, Louis—Louis C. Googe—"

"My God!"

Whether the ejaculation proceeded from one mouth or five, the manager and foreman could not distinguish; but the effect on the Flamsted men was varied and remarkable. The Colonel's cigar dropped from his shaking hand; his face was ashen. Emlie and Wiggins stared at each other as if they had taken leave of their senses. Joel Quimber leaned forward, his hands folded on the head of his cane, and spoke to Octavius who sat rigid on his chair:

"What'd he say, Tave?—Champ to home?"

But Octavius Buzzby was beyond the power of speech. Augustus spoke for him:

"He said a man applied for work in the sheds this afternoon, Uncle Jo, who wrote his name Louis C. Googe."

"Thet's him—thet's Champ—Champ's to home. You help me inter my coat, Tave, I 'm goin' to see ef's true—" He rose with difficulty. Then Octavius spoke; his voice shook:

"No, Uncle Jo, you sit still a while; if it's Champney, we can't none of us see him to-night." He pushed him gently into his chair.

The Colonel was rousing himself. He stepped to the telephone and called up Father HonorÉ.

"Father HonorÉ—

"This is Colonel Caukins. Can you tell me if there is any truth in the report that Champney Googe has returned to-day?

"Thank God."

He put up the receiver, but still remained standing.

"Gentlemen," he said to the manager and the Upper Quarry guest, his voice was thick with emotion and the tears of thankfulness were coursing down his cheeks, "perhaps no greater gift could be bestowed on my sixty-fifth birthday than Champney Googe's return to his home—his mother—his friends—we are all his friends. Perhaps the years are beginning to tell on me, but I feel that I must excuse myself to you and go home—I want to tell my wife. I will explain all to you, as strangers among us, some other time; for the present I must beg your indulgence—joy never kills, but I am experiencing the fact that it can weaken."

"That's all right, Colonel," said the manager; "we understand it perfectly and it's late now."

"I'll go, too, Colonel," said Octavius; "I'm going to take Uncle Jo home in the trap."

Luigi Poggi helped the Colonel into his great coat. When he left the room with his prospective father-in-law, his handsome face had not regained the color it lost upon the first mention of Champney's name.

Emlie and Wiggins remained a few minutes to explain as best they could the situation to the stranger guests, and the cause of the excitement.

"I remember now hearing about this affair; I read it in the newspapers—it must have been seven or eight years ago."

"Six years and four months." Mr. Wiggins corrected him.

"I guess it'll be just as well not to spread the matter much among the men—they might kick; besides he isn't, of course, a union man."

"There's one thing in his favor," it was Emlie who spoke, "the management and the men have changed since it occurred, and there are very few except our home folks that would be apt to mention it—and they can be trusted where Champney Googe is concerned."

The four went out together.

The grill room of The Greenbush was empty save for Augustus Buzzby who sat smoking before the dying fire. Old visions were before his eyes—one of the office on a June night many years ago; the five friends discussing Champney Googe's prospects; the arrival of Father HonorÉ and little Aileen Armagh—so Luigi had at last given up hope in that direction for good and all.

The town clock struck twelve. He sighed heavily; it was for the old times, the old days, the old life.

---

VIII

It was several months before Aileen saw him. Her close attendance on Mrs. Champney and her avoidance of the precincts of The Gore—Maggie complained loudly to Mrs. Googe that Aileen no longer ran in as she used to do, and Mrs. Caukins confided to her that she thought Aileen might feel sensitive about Luigi's engagement, for she had been there but twice in five months—precluded the possibility of her meeting him. She excused herself to Mrs. Googe and the Sisters on the ground of her numerous duties at Champ-au-Haut; Ann and Hannah were both well on in years and Mrs. Champney was failing daily.

It was perhaps five months after his return that she was sitting one afternoon in Mrs. Champney's room, in attendance on her while the regular nurse was out for two hours. There had been no conversation between them for nearly the full time, when Mrs. Champney spoke abruptly from the bed:

"I heard last month that Champney Googe is back again—has been back for five months; why didn't you tell me before?"

The voice was very weak, but querulous and sharp. Aileen was sewing at the window. She did not look up.

"Because I didn't suppose you liked him well enough to care about his coming home; besides, it was Octavius' place to tell you."

"Well, I don't care about his coming, or his going either, for that matter, but I do care about knowing things that happen under my very nose within a reasonable time of their happening. I'm not in my dotage yet, I'll have you to understand."

Aileen was silent.

"Come, say something, can't you?" she snapped.

"What do you want me to say, Mrs. Champney?" She spoke wearily, but not impatiently. The daily, almost hourly demands of this sick old woman had, in a way, exhausted her.

"Tell me what he's doing."

"He's at work."

"Where?"

"In the sheds—Shed Number Two."

"What!" Paralysis prevented any movement of her hands, but her head jerked on the pillow to one side, towards Aileen.

"I said he was at work in the sheds."

"What's Champney Googe doing in the sheds?"

"Earning his living, I suppose, like other men."

Almeda Champney was silent for a while. Aileen could but wonder what the thoughts might be that were filling the shrivelled box of the brain—what were the feelings in the ossifying heart of the woman who had denied help to one of her own blood in time of need. Had she any feeling indeed, except that for self?

"Have you seen him?"

"No."

"I should think he would want to hide his head for shame."

"I don't see why." She spoke defiantly.

"Why? Because I don't see how after such a career a man can hold up his head among his own."

Aileen bit her under lip to keep back the sharp retort. She chose another and safer way.

"Oh," she said brightly, looking over to Mrs. Champney with a frank smile, "but he has really just begun his career, you know—"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean he has just begun honest work among honest men, and that's the best career for him or any other man to my thinking."

"Umph!—little you know about it."

Aileen laughed outright. "Oh, I know more than you think I do, Mrs. Champney. I haven't lived twenty-six years for nothing, and what I've seen, I've seen—and I've no near-sighted eyes to trouble me either; and what I've heard, I've heard, for my ears are good—regular long-distance telephones sometimes."

She was not prepared for the next move on Mrs. Champney's part.

"I believe you would marry him now—after all, if he asked you." She spoke with a sneer.

"Do you really believe it?" She folded her work and prepared to leave the room, for she heard the nurse's step in the hall below. "Well, if you do, I'll tell you something, Mrs. Champney, but I'd like it to be between us." She crossed the room and paused beside the bed.

"What?"

She bent slightly towards her. "I would rather marry a man who earns his three dollars a day at honest work of quarrying or cutting stones,—or breaking them, for that matter,"—she added under her breath, "but I'm not saying he would be any relation of yours—than a man who doesn't know what a day's toil is except to cudgel his brains tired, with contriving the quickest means of making his millions double themselves at other people's expense in twenty-four hours."

The nurse opened the door. Mrs. Champney spoke bitterly:

"You little fool—you think you know, but—" aware of the nurse, she ended fretfully, "you wear me out, talking so much. Tell Hannah to make me some fresh tamarind water—and bring it up quick."

By the time Aileen had brought up the refreshment, she had half repented of her words. Mrs. Champney had been failing perceptibly the last few weeks, and all excitement was forbidden her. For this reason she had been kept so long in ignorance of Champney's return. As Aileen held the drinking tube to her lips, she noticed that the faded sunken eyes, fixed upon her intently, were not inimical—and she was thankful. She desired to live in peace, if possible, with this pitiable old age so long as it should last—a few weeks at the longest. The lesson of the piece of granite was not lost upon her. She kept the specimen on a little shelf over her bed.

She went down stairs into the library to answer a telephone call; it was from Maggie McCann who begged her to come up that afternoon to see her; the matter was important and could not wait. Aileen knew by the pleading tone of the voice, which sounded unnatural, that she was needed for something. She replied she would go up at once. She put on her hat, and while waiting for the tram at The Bow, bought a small bag of gumdrops for Billy.

Maggie received her with open arms and a gush of tears; thereupon Billy, now tottering on his unsteady feet, flopped suddenly on the floor and howled with true Irish good will.

"Why, Maggie, what is the matter!" she exclaimed.

"Och, Aileen, darlin', me heart's in smithereens, and I'm that deep in trouble that me head's like to rend—an' Jim's all broke up—"

"What is it; do tell me, Maggie—can I help?" she urged, catching up Billy and endeavoring to smother his howls with kisses.

Mrs. McCann wiped her reddened eyes, took off her apron and sat down in a low chair by Aileen who was filling Billy's small mouth, conveniently open for another howl upon perceiving his mother wipe her eyes, with a sizable gumdrop.

"The little gells be over to the kindergarten with the Sisters, an' I thought I'd clane go out of me mind if I couldn't have a word wid you before Jim gets home—Och, Aileen, dearie, me home I'm so proud of—" She choked, and Billy immediately repudiated his gumdrop upon Aileen's clean linen skirt; his eyes were reading the signs of the times in his mother's face.

"Now, Maggie, dear, tell me all about it. Begin at the beginning, and then I'll know where you're at."

Maggie smiled faintly. "Sure, I wouldn't blame you for not knowin' where I'm at." Mrs. McCann sniffed several times prefatorily.

"You know I told you Jim had a temper, Aileen—"

Aileen nodded in assent; she was busy coaxing the rejected ball into Billy's puckered mouth.

"—And that there's times whin he querrels wid the men—"

"Yes."

"Well, you know Mr. Googe bein' in the same shed an' section wid Jim, I says innercent-like to Jim:—'I'm glad he's in your section, Jim, belike you can make it a bit aisier for him.'

"'Aisy is it?' says Jim.

"'Yes, aisy,' says I.

"'An' wot wud I be after makin' a job aisier for the likes of him?' he says, grouchy-like.

"'An' why not?' says I.

"'For a jail-bird?' says he.

"'Deed,' says I, 'if yer own b'y had been breakin' stones wid a gang of toughs for sivin long years gone, wouldn't ye be after likin' a man to spake wan daycint word wid him?' says I.

"Wid that Jim turned on quick-like an' says:—

"'I'll thank ye, Mrs. McCann, to kape yer advice to yerself. It's not Jim McCann's b'y that'll be doin' the dirthy job that yer Mr. Champney Googe was after doin' six years gone, nor be after takin' the bread an' butter out of an honest man's mout' that has a wife an' three childer to feed. He's a convic',' says Jim.

"'What if he is?' says I.

"'I don't hold wid no convic's,' says Jim; 'I hold wid honest men; an' if it's convic's be comin' to take the best piece-work out of our hands, it's time we struck—to a man,' says Jim.

"Niver, niver but wanct has Jim called me 'Mrs. McCann,'" Maggie said brokenly, but stifled a sob for Billy's sake; "an' niver wanct has he gone to work widout kissin' me an' the childer, sometimes twice round—but he went out yisterday an' niver turned for wan look at wife an' childer; an' me heart was that heavy in my bosom that me b'y refused the breast an' cried like to kill himself for wan mortal hour, an' the little gells cried too, an' me bread burnin' to a crisp, an' I couldn't do wan thing but just sit down wid me hands full of cryin' childer—an' me heart cryin' like a child wid 'em."

Aileen tried to comfort.

"But, Maggie, such things will happen in the happiest married lives, and with the best of husbands. Jim will get over it—I suppose he has by this time; you say it isn't like to him to hold anger long—"

"But he hasn't!" Maggie broke forth afresh, and between mother and son, who immediately followed suit, a deluge threatened. "Wan of the stone-cutters' wives, Mrs. MacLoughanchan, he works in the same section as Jim, told me about it—"

"About what?" Aileen asked, hoping to get some continuity into Maggie's relation of her marital woes.

"The fight at the sheds."

"What fight?" Aileen put the question with a sickening fear at her heart.

"The fight betwixt Jim an' Mr. Googe—"

"What do you mean, Maggie?"

"I mane wot I say," Maggie replied with some show of spirit, for Aileen's tone of voice was peremptory; "Jim McCann, me husband, an' Mr. Googe had words in the shed—"

"What words?"

"Just lave me time an' I'll tell you, Aileen. You be after catchin' me short up betwixt ivery word, an' more be token as if't was your own man, instid of mine, ye was worrittin' about. I said they had words, but by rights I should say it was Jim as had them. Jim was mad because the boss in Shed Number Two give Mr. Googe a piece of work he had been savin' an' promisin' him; an' Jim made a fuss about it, an' the boss said he'd give Jim another, but Jim wanted that wan piece; an' Jim threatened to get up a strike, an' if there's a strike Jim'll lave the place an' I'll lose me home—ochone—"

"Go on, Maggie." Aileen was trying to anticipate Maggie's tale, and in anticipation of the worst happening to Champney Googe, she lost her patience. She could not bear the suspense.

"But Jim didn't sass the boss—he sassed Mr. Googe. 'T was this way, so Mrs. MacLoughanchan says—Jim said niver a word about the fight to me, but he said he would lave the place if they didn't strike—Mr. Googe says, 'McCann, the foreman says you're to begin on the two keystones at wanct—at wanct,' says he, repating it because Jim said niver a word. An' Jim fires up an' says under his breath:

"'I don't take no orders from convic's,' says he.

"'What did you say, McCann?' says Mr. Googe, steppin' up to him wid a glint in his eye that Jim didn't mind he was so mad; an' instid of repatin' it quiet-like, Jim says, steppin' outside the shed when he see the boss an' Mr. Googe followin' him, loud enough for the whole shed to hear:

'"I don't take orders from no convic's—' an' then—" Maggie laid her hand suddenly over her heart as if in pain, '"Take that back, McCann,' says Mr. Googe—'I'll give you the wan chanct.'—An' then Jim swore an' said he'd see him an' himself in hell first, an' then, before Jim knew wot happened, Mr. Googe lit out wid his fist—an' Jim layin' out on the grass, for Mrs. MacLoughanchan says her man said Mr. Googe picked a soft place to drop him in; an' Mr. Googe helps Jim to his feet, an' holds out his hand an' says:

"'Shake hands, McCann, an' we'll start afresh—'

"But, oh, Aileen! Jim wouldn't, an' Mr. Googe turned away sad-like, an' then Jim comes home, an' widout a word to his wife, says if they don't strike, because there's a convic' an' a no union man a-workin' 'longside of him in his section, he'll lave an' give up his job here—an' it's two hundred he's paid down out of his wages, an' me a-savin' from morn till night on me home—an' 't was to be me very own because Jim says no man alive can tell when he'll be dead in the quarries an' the sheds."

She wept afresh and Billy was left unconsoled, for Maggie, wiping her eyes to look at Aileen and wonder at her silence, saw that she, too, was weeping; but the tears rolled silently one after another down her flushed cheeks.

"Och, Aileen, darlin'! Don't ye cry wid me—me burden's heavy enough widout the weight of wan of your tears—say something to comfort me heart about Jim."

"I can't, Maggie, I think it's wicked for Jim to say such things to Mr. Googe—everybody knows what he has been through. And it would serve Jim McCann but right," she added hotly, "if the time should come when his Billy should have the same cruel words said to him—"

"Don't—don't—for the love of the Mother of God, don't say such things, Aileen!" She caught up the sorely perplexed and troubled Billy, and buried her face in his red curls. "Don't for the sake of the mother I am, an' only a mother can know how the Mother of God himself felt wid her crucified Son an' the bitter words he had to hear—ye're not a mother, Aileen, an' so I won't lay it up too much against ye—"

Aileen interrupted her with exceeding bitterness;

"No, I'm not a mother, Maggie, and I never shall be."

Maggie looked at her in absolute incomprehension. "I thought you was cryin' for me, an' Jim, an' all our prisent troubles, but I belave yer cryin' for—"

Mrs. McCann stopped short; she was still staring at Aileen who suddenly lifted her brimming eyes to hers.—What Mrs. McCann read therein she never accurately defined, even to Jim; but, whatever it was, it caused a revulsion of feeling in Maggie's sorely bruised heart. She set Billy down on the floor without any ceremony, much to that little man's surprise, and throwing her arms around Aileen drew her close with a truly maternal caress.

"Och, darlin'—darlin'—" she said in the voice with which she soothed Billy to sleep, "darlin' Aileen, an' has your puir heart been bearin' this all alone, an' me talkin' an' pratin' about me Jim to ye, an' how beautiful it is to be married!—'Deed an' it is, darlin', an' if Jim wasn't a man he'd be an angel sure; but it's not Maggie McCann that's wantin' her husband to be an angel yet, an' you must just forgive him, Aileen, an' you'll find yerself that no man's parfection, an' a woman has to be after takin' thim as they be—lovin' an' gentle be times, an' cross as Cain whin yer expectin' thim to be swateheartin' wid ye; an' wake when ye think they're after bein' rale giants; an' strong whin ye're least lookin' for it; an ginerous by spells an' spendthrifts wid their 'baccy, an' skinflints wid their own, an'—an'—just common, downright aggravatin', lovable men, darlin'—There now! Yer smilin' again like me old Aileen, an' bad cess to the wan that draws another tear from your swate Irish eyes." She kissed her heartily.

In trying to make amends Mrs. McCann forgot her own woes; taking Billy in her arms, she went to the stove and set on the kettle.

"It's four past, an' Jim'll be comin' in tired and worritted, so I'll put on an extra potater or two an' a good bit of bacon an' some pase. Stay wid us, Aileen."

"No, Maggie, I can't; besides you and Jim will want the house to yourself till you get straightened out—and, Maggie, it will straighten out, don't you worry."

"'Deed, an' I'll not waste me breath another time tellin' me troubles to a heart that's sorer than me own—good-bye, darlin', an' me best thanks for comin' up so prompt to me in me trouble. It's good to have a friend, Aileen, an' we've been friendly that long that it seems as if me own burden must be yours."

Aileen smiled, leaning to kiss Billy as he clung to his mother's neck.

"I'll come up whenever you want me and I can get away, Maggie, an' next time I'll bring you more comfort, I hope. Good-bye."

"Och, darlin'!—T'row a kiss, Billy. Look, Aileen, at the kisses me b'y's t'rowin' yer!" she exclaimed delightedly; and Billy, in the exuberance of his joy that tears were things of the past, continued to throw kisses after the lady till she disappeared down the street.

---

IX

Oh, but her heart was hot with indignation as she walked along the road, her eyes were stung with scalding tears, her thoughts turbulent and rebellious! Why must he suffer such indignities from a man like Jim McCann! How dared a man, that was a man, taunt another like that! The hand holding her sun umbrella gripped the handle tightly, and through set teeth she said to herself: "I hate them all—hate them!"

The declining July sun was hot upon her; the road-bed, gleaming white with granite dust, blinded her. She looked about for some shelter where she could wait for the down car; there was none in sight, except the pines over by Father HonorÉ's and the sisterhood house an eighth of a mile beyond. She continued to stand there in the glare and the heat—miserable, dejected, rebellious, until the tram halted for her. The car was an open one; there was no other occupant. As it sped down the curving road to the lake shore, the breeze, created by its movement, was more than grateful to her. She took off her shade-hat to enjoy the full benefit of it.

At the switch, half way down, the tram waited for the up car. She could hear it coming from afar; the overhead wires vibrated to the extra power needed on the steep grade. It came in sight, crowded with workmen on their way home to Quarry End; the rear platform was black with them. It passed over the switch slowly, passed within two feet of her seat. She turned to look at it, wondering at its capacity for so many—and looked, instead, directly into the face of Champney Googe who stood on the lower step, his dinner-pail on his arm, the arm thrust through the guard.

At sight of her, so near him that the breath of each might have been felt on the cheek of the other, he raised his workman's cap—

She saw the gray head, the sudden pallor on brow and cheek, the deep, slightly sunken eyes fixed upon her as if on her next move hung the owner's hope of eternal life—the eyes moved with the slowly moving car to focus her....

To Aileen Armagh that face, changed as it was, was a glimpse of heaven on earth, and that heaven was reflected in the smile with which she greeted it. She did more:—unheeding the many faces that were turned towards her, she leaned from the car, her eyes following him, the love-light still radiating from her every feature, till he was carried beyond sight around the curving base of the Flamsted Hills.

She heard nothing more externally, saw nothing more, until she found herself at The Corners instead of The Bow. The tumult within her rendered her deaf to the clanging of the electric gong, blind to the people who had entered along Main Street. Love, and love alone, was ringing its joy-bells in her soul till external sounds grew muffled, indistinct; until she became unaware of her surroundings. Love was knocking so loudly at her heart that the bounding blood pulsed rhythmic in her ears. Love was claiming her wholly, possessing her soul and body—but no longer that idealizing love of her young girlhood and womanhood. Rather it was that love which is akin to the divine rapture of maternity—the love that gives all, that sacrifices all, which demands nothing of the loved one save to love, to shield, to comfort—the love that makes of a true woman's breast not only a rest whereon a man, as well as his babe, may pillow a weary head, but a round tower of strength within which there beats a heart of high courage for him who goes forth to the daily battlefield of Life.

She rode back to The Bow. Hannah called to her from the kitchen door when she saw her coming up the driveway:

"Come round here a minute, Aileen."

"What is it, Hannah?" Her voice trembled in spite of her effort to speak naturally. She prayed Hannah might not notice.

"Here's a little broth I've made for Uncle Jo Quimber. I heard he wasn't very well, and I wish you'd take this down to him before supper. Tell him it won't hurt him and it's real strengthenin'."

"I will go now, and—Hannah, don't mind if I don't come home to supper to-night; I'm not hungry; it's too hot to eat. If I want anything, I'll get a glass of milk in the pantry afterwards. If Mrs. Champney should want me, tell Octavius he'll find me down by the boat house."

"Mis' Champney ain't so well, to-night, the nurse says. I guess it's this heat is telling on her."

"I should think it would—even I feel it." She was off again down the driveway, glad to be moving, for a strange restlessness was upon her.

She found Joel Quimber sitting in his arm chair on the back porch of the little house belonging to his grand-niece. The old man looked feeble, exhausted and white; but his eyes brightened on seeing Aileen come round the corner of the porch.

"What you got there, Aileen?"

"Something good for you, Uncle Jo. Hannah made it for you on purpose." She showed him the broth.

"Hannah's a good soul, I thank her kindly. Set down, Aileen, set down."

"I'm afraid you're too tired to have company to-night, Uncle Jo."

"Lord, no—you ain't comp'ny, Aileen, an' I ain't never too tired to have your comp'ny either."

She smiled and took her seat on the lower step, at his feet.

"Jest thinkin' of you, Aileen—"

"Me, Uncle Jo? What put me into your head?"

"You're in a good part of the time ef you did but know it."

"Oh, Uncle Jo, did they teach you how to flatter like that in the little old schoolhouse you showed me years ago at The Corners?"

Old Joel Quimber chuckled weakly.

"No—not thar. A man, ef he's any kind of a man, don't have to learn his a-b-c before he can tell a good-lookin' gal she's in his head, or his heart—jest which you're a min' ter—most of the time. Yes, I was thinkin' of you, Aileen—you an' Champney."

The color died out entirely from Aileen's cheeks, and then surged into them again till she put her hands to her face to cool their throbbing. She was wondering if Love had entered into some conspiracy with Fate to-day to keep this beloved name ever in her ears.

"What about me and Mr. Googe?" She spoke in a low tone, her face was turned away from the old man to the meadows and the sheds in the distance.

"I was a-thinkin' of this time fourteen year ago this very month. Champ an' me was walkin' up an' down the street, an' he was tellin' me 'bout that serenade, an' how you'd give him a rosebud with pepper in it—Lord, Aileen, you was a case, an' no mistake! An' I was thinkin', too, what Champ said to me thet very night. He was tellin' 'bout thet great hell-gate of New York, an' he said, 'You've got to swim with the rest or you'd go under, Uncle Jo,'—'go under,' them's his very words. An' I said, 'Like enough you would, Champ—I ain't ben thar—'"

He paused a moment, shuffled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Then he spoke again, but in so low a tone that Aileen could barely catch the words:

"An' he went under, Champ did—went under—"

Aileen felt, without seeing, for her face was still turned to the meadows and the sheds, that the old man was leaning to her. Then she heard his voice in her ear:

"Hev you seen him?"

"Once, Uncle Jo."

"You're his friend, ain't you, Aileen?"

"Yes." Her voice trembled.

"Guess we're all his friends in Flamsted—I heered they fit in the shed, Champ an' Jim McCann—it hadn't ought 'a'-ben, Aileen—hadn't ought 'a'-ben; but't warn't Champ's fault, you may bet your life on thet. Champ went under, but he didn't stay under—you remember thet, Aileen. An' I can't nowise blame him, now he's got his head above water agin, for not stan'in' it to have a man like McCann heave a stone at him jest ez he's makin' for shore. 'T ain't right, an' the old Judge use ter say, 'What ain't right hadn't ought ter be.'"

He waited a while to regain his scant breath; the long speech had exhausted it. At last he chuckled weakly to himself, "Champ's a devil of a feller—" he caught up his words as if he were saying too much; laid his hand on Aileen's head; turned her face half round to his and, leaning, whispered again in her ear:

"Don't you go back on Champ, promise me thet, Aileen."

She sprang to her feet and laid her hand in his.

"I promise, Uncle Jo."

"Thet's a good girl." He laid his other hand over hers. "You stick by Champ an' stick up for him too; he's good blood, an' ef he did go under for a spell, he ain't no worse 'n the rest, nor half ez bad; for Champ went in of his own accord—of his own accord," he repeated significantly, "an' don't you forget thet, Aileen! Thet takes grit; mebbe you wouldn't think so, but it does. Champ makes me think of them divers, I've read an' heerd about, thet dives for pearls. Some on 'em comes up all right, but some of 'em go under for good an' all. Champ dove mighty deep—he was diving for money, which he figured was his pearl, Aileen—an' he most went under for good an' all without gettin' what he wanted, an' now he's come to the surface agin, it's all ben wuth it—he's got the pearl, Aileen, but t'ain't the one he expected to get—he told me so t' other night. We set here him an' me, an' understan' one 'nother even when we don't talk—jest set an' smoke an' puff—"

"What pearl is it, Uncle Jo?" She whispered her question, half fearing, but wholly longing to hear the old man's answer.

"Guess he'll tell you himself sometime, Aileen."

He leaned back in his chair; he was tired. Aileen stooped and kissed him on the forehead.

"Goodnight, Uncle Jo," she said softly, "an' don't forget Hannah's broth or there'll be trouble at Champo."

He roused himself again.

"I heered from Tave to-day thet Mis' Champney is pretty low."

"Yes, she feels this heat in her condition."

"Like enough—like enough; guess we all do a little." Then he seemed to speak to himself:—"She was rough on Champ," he murmured.

Aileen left him with that name on his lips.

On her return to Champ-au-Haut, she went down to the boat house to sit a while in its shade. The surface of the lake was motionless, but the reflection of the surrounding heights and shores was slightly veiled, owing to the heat-haze that quivered above it.

Aileen was reliving the experience of the last seven years, the consummation of which was the knowledge that Champney Googe loved her. She was sure of this now. She had felt it intuitively during the twilight horror of that October day in The Gore. But how, when, where would he speak the releasing word—the supreme word of love that alone could atone, that alone could set her free? Would he ever speak it?—could he, after that avowal of the unreasoning passion for her which had taken possession of him seven years ago? And, moreover, what had not that avowal and its expression done to her?

Her cheek paled at the thought:—he had kissed love into her for all time; and during all his years of imprisonment she had been held in thrall, as it were, to him and to his memory. All her rebellion at such thraldom, all her disgust at her weakness, as she termed it, all her hatred, engendered by the unpalatable method he had used to enthrall her, all her struggle to forget, to live again her life free of any entanglement with Champney Googe, all her endeavors to care for other men, had availed her naught. Love she must—and Champney Googe remained the object of that love. Father HonorÉ's words gave her courage to live on—loving.

"Champney—Champney," she said low to herself. She covered her face with her hands. The mere taking of his name on her lips eased the exaltation of her mood. She rejoiced that she had been able that afternoon to show him how it stood with her after these many years; for the look in his eyes, when he recognized her, told her that she alone could hold to his lips the cup that should quench his thirst. Oh, she would be to him what no other woman could ever have been, ever could be—no other! She knew this. He knew it. When, oh, when would the word be spoken?

She withdrew her hands from her face, and looked up the lake to the sheds. The sun was nearing the horizon, and against its clear red light the gray buildings loomed large and dark.—And there was his place!

She sprang to her feet, ready to act upon a sudden thought. If she were not needed at the house, she would go up to the sheds; perhaps she could walk off the restlessness that kept urging her to action. At any rate, she could find comfort in thinking of his presence there during the day; she would be for a time, at least, in his environment. She knew Jim McCann's section; she and Maggie had been there more than once to watch the progress of some great work.

On the way up to the house she met Octavius.

"Where you going, Aileen?"

"Up to the house to see if I'm needed. If they don't want me, I'm going up to the sheds for a walk. They say they look like cathedrals this week, so many of the arches and pillars are ready to be shipped."

"There's no need of your going up to the house. Mis' Champney ain't so well, and the nurse says she give orders for no one to come nigh her—for she's sent for Father HonorÉ."

"Father HonorÉ! What can she want of him?" she asked in genuine surprise. "He hasn't been here for over a year."

"Well, anyway, I've got my orders to fetch Father HonorÉ, and I was just asking Hannah where you were. I thought you might like to ride up with me; I've harnessed up in the surrey."

"I won't drive way up, Tave; but I'd like you to put me down at the sheds. Maggie says it's really beautiful now in Shed Number Two. While I'm waiting for you, I can nose round all I want to and you can pick me up there on your way back. Just wait till I run up to the house to see the nurse myself, will you?" Octavius nodded.

She ran up the steps of the terrace, and on her return found Octavius with the surrey at the front door.

Aileen was silent during the first part of the drive. This was unusual when the two were together, and, after waiting a while, Octavius spoke:

"I'm wondering what she wants to see Father HonorÉ for."

"I'd like to know myself."

"It's got into my head, and somehow I can't get it out, that it's something to do with Champney—"

"Champney!—" the name slipped unawares through the red barrier of her lips; she bit them in vexation at their betrayal of her thought—"you mean Champney Googe?" She tried to speak indifferently.

"Who else should I mean?" Octavius answered shortly. Aileen's ways at times, especially during these last few years when Champney Googe's name happened to be mentioned in her presence, were irritating in the extreme to the faithful factotum at Champ-au-Haut.

"I wish, Aileen, you'd get over your grudge against him—"

"What grudge?"

"You can tell that best yourself—there's no use your playing off—I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can put my finger on the very year and the very month you turned against Champney Googe who never had anything but a pleasant word for you ever since you was so high—" he indicated a few feet on his whipstock—"and first come to Champo. 'T ain't generous, Aileen; 't ain't like a true woman; 't ain't like you to go back on a man just because he has sinned. He stands in need of us all now, although they say at the sheds he can hold his own with the best of 'em—I heard the manager telling Emlie he'd be foreman of Shed Number Two if he kept on, for he's the only one can get on with all of the foreigners; guess Jim McCann knows—"

"What do you mean by the year and the month?"

"I mean what I say. 'T was in August seven years ago—but p'r'aps you don't remember," he said. His sarcasm was intentional.

She made no reply, but smiled to herself—a smile so exasperating to Octavius that he sulked a few minutes in silence. After another eighth of a mile, she spoke with apparent interest:

"What makes you think Mrs. Champney wants to see Father HonorÉ about her nephew?"

"Because it looks that way. This afternoon, when you was out, she got me to move Mr. Louis' picture from the library to her room, and I had to hang it on the wall opposite her bed—" Octavius paused—"I believe she don't think she'll last long, and she don't look as if she could either. Last week she had Emlie up putting a codicil to her will. The nurse told me she was one of the witnesses, she and Emlie and the doctor—catch her letting me see any of her papers!" He reined into the road that led to the sheds.

"I hope to God she'll do him justice this time," he spoke aloud, but evidently to himself.

"How do you mean, Tave?"

"I mean by giving him what's his by rights; that's what I mean." He spoke emphatically.

"He wouldn't be the man I think he is if he ever took a cent from her—not after what she did!" she exclaimed hotly.

Octavius turned and looked at her in amazement.

"That's the first time I ever heard you speak up for Champney Googe, an' I've known you since before you knew him. Well, it's better late than never." He spoke with a degree of satisfaction in his tone that did not escape Aileen. "Which door shall I leave you at?"

"Round at the west—there are some people coming out now—here we are. You'll find me here when you come back."

"I shall be back within a half an hour; I telephoned Father HonorÉ I was coming up—you're sure you don't mind waiting here alone? I'll get back before dusk."

"What should I be afraid of? I won't let the stones fall on me!"

She sprang to the ground. Octavius turned the horse and drove off.

---

On entering the shed she caught her breath in admiration. The level rays of the July sun shone into the gray interior illumining the farthest corners. Their glowing crimson flushed the granite to a scarcely perceptible rose. Portions of the noble arches, parts of the architrave, sculptured cornice and keystone, drums, pediments and capitals, stone mullions, here and there a huge monolith, caught the ethereal flush and transformed Shed Number Two into a temple of beauty.

She sought the section near the doors, where Jim McCann worked, and sat down on one of the granite blocks—perhaps the very one on which he was at work. The fancy was a pleasing one. Now and then she laid her hand caressingly on the cool stone and smiled to herself. Some men and women were looking at the huge Macdonald machine over in the farthermost corner; one by one they passed out at the east door—at last she was alone with her loving thoughts in this cool sanctuary of industry.

She noticed a chisel lying behind the stone on which she sat; she turned and picked it up. She looked about for a hammer; she wanted to try her puny strength on what Champney Googe manipulated with muscles hardened by years of breaking stones—that thought was no longer a nightmare to her—but she saw none. The sun sank below the horizon; the afterglow promised to be both long and beautiful. After a time she looked out across the meadows—a man was crossing them; evidently he had just left the tram, for she heard the buzzing of the wires in the still air. He was coming towards the sheds. His form showed black against the western sky. Another moment—and Aileen knew him to be Champney Googe.

She sat there motionless, the chisel in her hand, her face turned to the west and the man rapidly approaching Shed Number Two—a moment more, he was within the doors, and, evidently in haste, sought his section; then he saw her for the first time. He stopped short. There was a cry:

"Aileen—Aileen—"

She rose to her feet. With one stride he stood before her, leaning to look long into her eyes which never wavered while he read in them her woman's fealty to her love for him.

He held out his hands, and she placed hers within them. He spoke, and the voice was a prayer:

"My wife, Aileen—"

"My husband—" she answered, and the words were a Te Deum.

---

X

Octavius drew up near the shed and handed the reins to Father HonorÉ.

"If you'll just hold the mare a minute, I'll step inside and look for Aileen."

He disappeared in the darkening entrance, but was back again almost immediately. Father HonorÉ saw at once from his face that something unusual had taken place. He feared an accident.

"Is Aileen all right?" he asked anxiously.

Octavius nodded. He got into the surrey; the hands that took the reins shook visibly. He drove on in silence for a few minutes. He was struggling for control of his emotion; for the truth is Octavius wanted to cry; and when a man wants to cry and must not, the result is inarticulateness and a painful contortion of every feature. Father HonorÉ, recognizing this fact, waited. Octavius swallowed hard and many times before he could speak; even then his speech was broken:

"She's in there—all right—but Champney Googe is with her—"

"Thank God!"

Father HonorÉ's voice rang out with no uncertain sound. It was a heartening thing to hear, and helped powerfully to restore to Octavius his usual poise. He turned to look at his companion and saw every feature alive with a great joy. Suddenly the scales fell from this man of Maine's eyes.

"You don't mean it!" he exclaimed in amazement.

"Oh, but I do," replied Father HonorÉ joyfully and emphatically....

"Father HonorÉ," he said after a time in which both men were busy with their thoughts, "I ain't much on expressing what I feel, but I want to tell you—for you'll understand—that when I come out of that shed I'd had a vision,"—he paused,—"a revelation;" the tears were beginning to roll down his cheeks; his lips were trembling; "we don't have to go back two thousand years to get one, either—I saw what this world's got to be saved by if it's saved at all—"

"What was it, Mr. Buzzby?" Father HonorÉ spoke in a low voice.

"I saw a vision of human love that was forgiving, and loving, and saving by nothing but love, like the divine love of the Christ you preach about—Father HonorÉ, I saw Aileen Armagh sitting on a block of granite and Champney Googe kneeling before her, his head in the very dust at her feet—and she raising it with her two arms—and her face was like an angel's—"

---

The two men drove on in silence to Champ-au-Haut.

The priest was shown at once to Mrs. Champney's room. He had not seen her for over a year and was prepared for a great change; but the actual impression of her condition, as she lay motionless on the bed, was a shock. His practised eye told him that the Inevitable was already on the threshold, demanding entrance. He turned to the nurse with a look of inquiry.

"The doctor will be here in a few minutes; I have telephoned for him," she said low in answer. She bent over the bed.

"Mrs. Champney, Father HonorÉ is here; you wished to see him."

The eyes opened; there was still mental clarity in their outlook. Father HonorÉ stepped to the bed.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Champney?" he asked gently.

"Yes."

Her articulation was indistinct but intelligible.

"In what way?"

She looked at him unwaveringly.

"Is—she going—to marry—him?"

Father HonorÉ read her thought and wondered how best to answer. He was of the opinion that she would remember Aileen in her will. The girl had been for years so faithful and, in a way, Mrs. Champney cared for her. Humanly speaking, he dreaded, by his answer, to endanger the prospect of the assurance to Aileen of a sum that would place her beyond want and the need to work for any one's support but her own in the future. But as he could not know what answer might or might not affect Aileen's future, he decided to speak the whole truth—let come what might.

"I sincerely hope so," he replied.

"Do—you know?" with a slight emphasis on the "know."

"I know they love each other—have loved each other for many years."

"If she does—she—won't get anything from me—you tell her—so."

"That will make no difference to Aileen, Mrs. Champney. Love outweighs all else with her."

She continued to look at him unwaveringly.

"Love—fools—" she murmured.

But Father HonorÉ caught the words, and the priest's manhood asserted itself in the face of dissolution and this blasphemy.

"No—rather it is wisdom for them to love; it is ordained of God that human beings should love; I wish them joy. May I not tell them that you, too, wish them joy, Mrs. Champney? Aileen has been faithful to you, and your nephew never wronged you personally. Will you not be reconciled to him?" he pleaded.

"No."

"But why?" He spoke very gently, almost in appeal.

"Why?" she repeated tonelessly, her eyes still fixed on his face, "because he is—hers—Aurora Googe's—"

She paused for another effort. Her eyes turned at last to the portrait of Louis Champney on the wall at the foot of her bed.

"She took all his love—all—all his love—and he was my husband—I loved my husband—But you don't know—"

"What, Mrs. Champney? Let me help you, if I can."

"No help—I loved my husband—he used to lie here—by my side—on this bed—and cry out—in his sleep for her—lie here—by my side in—the night—and stretch out his arms—for her—not me—not for me—"

Her eyes were still fixed on Louis Champney's face. Suddenly the lids drooped; she grew drowsy, but continued to murmur, incoherently at first, then inarticulately.

The nurse stepped to his side. Father HonorÉ's eyes dwelt pityingly for a moment on this deathbed; then he turned and left the room, marvelling at the differentiated expression in this life of that which we name Love.

Octavius was waiting for him in the lower hall.

"Did you see her?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes; but to no purpose; her life has been lived, Mr. Buzzby; nothing can affect it now."

"You don't mean she's gone?" Octavius started at the sound of his own voice; it seemed to echo through the house.

"No; but it is, I believe, only a question of an hour at most."

"I'd better drive up then for Aileen; she ought to know—ought to be here."

"Believe me, it would be useless, Mr. Buzzby. Those two belong to life, not to death—leave them alone together; and leave her there above, to her Maker and the infinite mercy of His Son."

"Amen," said Octavius Buzzby solemnly; but his thought was with those whom he had seen leave Champ-au-Haut through the same outward-opening portal that was now set wide for its mistress: the old Judge, and his son, Louis—the last Champney.

He accompanied Father HonorÉ to the door.

"No farther, Mr. Buzzby," he said, when Octavius insisted on driving him home. "Your place is here. I shall take the tram as usual at The Bow."

They shook hands without further speech. In the deepening twilight Octavius watched him down the driveway. Despite his sixty years he walked with the elastic step of young manhood.

---

XI

"Unworthy—unworthy!" was Champney Googe's cry, as he knelt before Aileen in an access of shame and contrition in the presence of such a revelation of woman's love.

---

Aileen lifted his head, laid her arms around his neck, drew him by her young strength and her gentle compelling words to a seat beside her on the granite block. She kept her arms about him.

"No, Champney, not unworthy; but worthy, worthy of it all—all that life can give you in compensation for those seven years. We'll put it all behind us; we'll live in the present and in hope of a blessed future. Take heart, my husband—"

The bowed shoulders heaved beneath her arms.

"So little to offer—so little—"

"'So little'!" she exclaimed; "and is it 'little' you call your love for me? Is it 'little' that I'm to have a home—at last—of my own? Is it 'little' that the husband I love is going out of it and coming home to it in his daily work, and my heart going out to him both ways at once? And is it 'little' you call the gift of a mother to her who is motherless—" her voice faltered.

Champney caught her in his arms; his tears fell upon the dark head.

"I'm a coward, Aileen, and you are just like our Father HonorÉ; but I will put all behind me. I will not regret. I will work out my own salvation here in my native place, among my own and among strangers. I vow here I will, God helping me, if only in thankfulness for the two hearts that are mine...."

---

The afterglow faded from the western heavens. The twilight came on apace. The two still sat there in the darkening shed, at times unburdening their over-charged hearts; at others each rested heart and body and soul in the presence of the other, and both were aware of the calming influence of the dim and silent shed.

"How did you happen to come down here just to-night, and after work hours too, Champney?" she asked, curious to know the how and the why of this meeting.

"I came down for my second chisel. I remembered when I got home that it needed sharpening and I could not do without it to-morrow morning. Of course the machine shop was closed, so I thought I'd try my hand at it on the grindstone up home this evening."

"Then is this it?" she exclaimed, picking up the chisel from the block.

"Yes, that's mine." He held out his hand for it.

"Indeed, you're not going to have it—not this one! I'll buy you another, but this is mine. Wasn't I holding it in my hand and thinking of you when I saw you coming over the meadows?"

"Keep it—and I'll keep something I have of yours."

"Of mine? Where did you get anything of mine? Surely it isn't the peppered rosebud?"

"Oh, no. I've had it nearly seven years."

"Seven years!" She exclaimed in genuine surprise. "And whatever have you had of mine I'd like to know that has kept seven years? It's neither silver nor gold—for I've little of either; not that silver or gold can make a man happy," she added quickly, fearing he might be sensitive to her speech.

"No; I've learned that, Aileen, thank God!"

"What is it then?—tell me quick."

He thrust his hand into the workman's blouse and drew forth a small package, wrapped in oiled silk and sewed to a cord that was round his neck. He opened it.

Aileen bent to examine it, her eyes straining in the increasing dusk.

"Why, it's never—it's not my handkerchief!—Champney!"

"Yes, yours, Aileen—that night in all the horror and despair, I heard something in your voice that told me you—didn't hate me—"

"Oh, Champney!"

"Yes. I've kept it ever since—I asked permission to take it in with me?—I mean into my cell. They granted it. It was with me night and day—my head lay on it at night; I got my first sleep so—and it went with me to work during the day. It's been kissed clean thin till it's mere gossamer; it helped, that and the work, to save my brain—"

She caught handkerchief and hand in both hers and pressed her lips to them again and again.

"And now I'm going to keep it, after you're mine in the sight of man, as you are now before God; put it away and keep it for—" He stopped short.

"For whom?" she whispered.

He drew her close to him—closer and more near.

"Aileen, my beloved," his voice was earnestly joyful, "I am hoping for the blessing of children—are you?—"

"Except for you, my arms will feel empty for them till they come—"

"Oh, my wife—my true wife!—now I can tell you all!" he said, and the earnest note was lost in purest joy. He whispered:

"You know, dear, I'm but half a man, and must remain such. I am no citizen, have no citizen's rights, can never vote—have no voice in all that appeals to manhood—my country—"

"I know—I know—" she murmured pityingly.

"And so I used to think there in my cell at night when I kissed the little handkerchief—Please God, if Aileen still loves me when I get out, if she in her loving mercy will forgive to the extent that she will be my wife, then it may be that she will bestow on me the blessing of a child—a boy who will one day stand among men as his father never can again, who will possess the full rights of citizenship; in him I may live again as a man—but only so."

"Please God it may be so."

---

They walked slowly homewards to The Bow in the clear warm dark of the midsummer-night. They had much to say to each other, and often they lingered on the way. They lingered again when they came to the gate by the paddock in the lane.

Aileen looked towards the house. A light was burning in Mrs. Champney's room.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Champney must be much worse. Tave never would have forgotten me if he hadn't received some telephone message while he was at Father HonorÉ's. But the nurse said there was nothing I could do when I left with Tave—but oh, I'm so glad he didn't stop! I must go in now, Champney," she said decidedly. But he still held her two hands.

"Tell me, Champney, have you ever thought your aunt might remember you—for the wrong she did you?"

"No; and if she should, I never would take a cent of it."

"Oh, I'm so glad—so glad!" She squeezed both his hands right hard.

He read her thought and smiled to himself; he was glad that in this he had not disappointed her.

"But there's one thing I wish she would do—poor—poor Aunt Meda—" he glanced up at the light in the window.

"Yes, 'poor,' Champney—I know." She was nodding emphatically.

"I wish she would leave enough to Mr. Van Ostend to repay with interest what he repaid for me to the Company; it would be only just, for, work as I may, I can never hope to do that—and I long so to do it—no workman could do it—"

She interrupted gayly: "Oh, but you've a working-woman by your side!" She snatched away her small hands—for she belonged to the small people of the earth. "See, Champney, the two hands! I can work, and I'm not afraid of it. I can earn a lot to help with—and I shall. There's my cooking, and singing, and embroidery—"

He smiled again in the dark at her enthusiasm—it was so like her!

"And I'll lift the care from our mother too,—and you're not to fret your dear soul about the Van Ostend money—if one can't do it, surely two can with God's blessing. Now I must go in—and you may give me another kiss for I've been on starvation diet these last seven years—only one—oh, Champney!"...

---

The dim light continued to burn in the upper chamber at Champ-au-Haut until the morning; for before Champney and Aileen left the shed, the Inevitable had already crossed the threshold of that chamber—and the dim light burned on to keep him company....

---

A month later, when Almeda Champney's will was admitted to probate and its contents made public, it was found that there were but six bequests—one of which was contained in the codicil—namely:

To Octavius Buzzby the oil portrait of Louis Champney.

To Ann and Hannah one thousand dollars each in recognition of faithful service for thirty-seven years.

To Aileen Armagh (so read the codicil) a like sum provided she did not marry Champney Googe.

One half of the remainder of the estate, real and personal, was bequeathed to Henry Van Ostend; the other half, in trust, to his daughter, Alice Maud Mary Van Ostend.

The instrument bore the date of Champney Googe's commitment.

---