o have their reward, for they are less encompassed
by the vanities of the world, having the joy of self-sacrifice.'" He
looked at Rosalie with an unnatural brightness in his eyes, and she
smiled at him now and stroked his hand.

"It has been all compensation to me," he said, after a moment. "You have
been a good daughter to me, Rosalie."

She shook her head and smiled. "Good fathers think they have good
daughters," she answered, choking back a sob.

He closed the book and let it lie upon the coverlet. "I will sleep now,"
he said, and turned on his side. She arranged his pillow, and adjusted
the bedclothes to his comfort.

"Good-night," he said, as, with a faint hand, he drew her head down and
kissed her. "Good girl! Goodnight!"

She patted his hand. "It is not night yet, father."

He was already half asleep. "Good-night!" he said again, and fell into a
deep sleep.

She sat down by the window, in her hand the book he had laid down. A
hundred thoughts were busy in her brain--of her father; of the woman who
had just left; of her lover over the hills. The woman's voice came
to her again--a far-off mockery. She opened the book mechanically and
turned over the pages. Presently her eyes were riveted to a page. On it
was written the word Kathleen.

For a moment she sat transfixed. The word Kathleen and the haunting
voice became one, and her mind ran back to the day when she had said to
Charley: "Who is Kathleen?"

She sprang to her feet. What should she do? Follow the woman? Find out
who and what she was? Go to the young surgeon who had accompanied them,
ask him who she was, and so learn the clue to the mystery concerning her
lover?

In the midst of her confusion she became sharply conscious of two
things: the approach of Mrs. Flynn, and her father's heavy breathing.
Dropping the book, she leaned over her father's bed and looked closely
at him. Then she turned to the frightened and anxious Mrs. Flynn.

"Go for the priest," she said. "He is dying."

"I'll send some one. I'm stayin' here by you, darlin'," said the old
woman, and hurried to the room of the young surgeon for a messenger.

As the sun went down, the cripple went out upon a long journey alone.

CHAPTER XLVIII. "WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING--"

As Charley walked the bank of the great river by the city where his old
life lay dead, he struggled with the new life which--long or short--must
henceforth belong to the village of the woman he love