There was absolute quiet in the home of the cobbler for over a week. The house hung heavy with gloom. Jinnie Grandoken was fighting a ghastlier monster than even old Matty had created for her amusement.

Of course Jinnie didn’t realize this, but two patient watchers knew, and so did a little black dog. To say that Lafe suffered, as Peggy repeated over and over to him the story of Jinnie’s loving act, would be words of small import, and through the night hours, when the cobbler relieved his wife at the sick girl’s bed, shapes black and forbidding rose before him, menacing the child he’d vowed to protect.

Could it be that Maudlin Bates had anything to do with Jinnie’s fall? Even so, he was powerless to shield her from the young wood gatherer. A more perplexing problem had never faced his paternal soul. After his little son had gone away, there had been no child to love until—and now as he looked at Jinnie, agony surged through him with the memory of that other agony—for she might go to little Lafe.

There came again the stabbing pain born with Peg’s tale of the dance. The white rose lay withered in the cobbler’s bosom where it had been since his girl had been carried to what the doctor said would in all probability be her deathbed. It was on nights like this that dead memories, with 96 solemn mien, raced from their graves, haunting the lame man. Even Lafe’s wonderful portion of faith had diminished during the past few days. He found himself praying mighty prayers that Jinnie would be spared, yet in mental bitterness visualizing her death. Oh, to keep yet a while within the confines of his life the child he loved!

“Let ’er stay, Lord dear, let my Rose o’ Paradise stay,” Lafe cried out into the shadowy night, time and time again.

Peggy came, as she often did, to wheel him away and order him to bed, but this evening Lafe told Peg he’d rather stay with Jinnie.

“She looks like death,” he whispered unnerved.

“She is almost dead,” replied the woman grimly.

The doctor entered with silent tread. Stealing to the bed, he put his hand on the girl’s brow.

“She’s better,” he whispered, smilingly. “Look! Damp! Nothing could be a surer sign!”

“May the good God be praised!” moaned Lafe.

Jinnie stirred, lifted her heavy lids, and surveyed the room vacantly. Her glance passed over the medical man as if he were not within the range of her vision. She gazed at Lafe only, with but a faint glimmer of recognition, then on to Peg wavered the sunken blue eyes.

“Drink of water, Peggy dear,” she whispered.

Mrs. Grandoken dropped the fluid into the open, parched mouth from a spoon; then she bent low to catch the stammering words:

“Did Lafe like the rose, Peggy, and did you get the ring of sausage?”

Peg glanced at the doctor, a question struggling to her lips, but she could not frame the words.

“Tell her ‘yes’,” said the man under his breath.

“Lafe just doted on the flower, honey,” acknowledged Peggy, bending over the bed, “and I cooked all the sausage, 97 an’ we two et ’em. They was finer’n silk.... Now go to sleep; will you?”

“Sure,” trembled Jinnie. “Put Happy Pete in my arms, dear.”

Mrs. Grandoken looked once more at the doctor. He nodded his head slightly.

So with the dog clasped in her arms, Jinnie straightway fell asleep.

Then Peggy wheeled Lafe away to bed, and as she helped him from the chair, she said:

“I lied to her just now with my own mouth, Lafe. I told her we et them sausages. We couldn’t eat ’em ’cause they was all mashed up an’ covered with blood.”

The cobbler’s eyes searched the mottled face of the speaker.

“That kind of lies ’re blessed by God in his Heaven, Peg,” he breathed tenderly. “A lie lendin’ a helpin’ hand to a sick lass is better’n most truths.”

Before going to bed Peg peeped in at Jinnie. The girl still lay with her arm over the sleeping Pete, her eyes roving round the room. She caught sight of the silent woman, and a troubled line formed between her brows.

“How’re you going to get money to live, Peggy?” she wailed. “I’m just beginning to remember about the dance and getting hurt.”

Peggy stood a moment at the foot of the bed.

“Lafe’s got a whole pocket full o’ money,” she returned glibly.

“That’s nice,” sighed the girl in relief.

“Shut up now an’ go to sleep! Lafe’s got enough cash to last a month.”

And as the white lids drooped over the violet eyes, Peg Grandoken’s guardian angel registered another lie to her credit in the life-book of her Heavenly Father.