urned. "And yet I never
pass the place that I don't see Eskew in his old chair. I went there
last night to commune with him. I couldn't sleep, and I got up, and
went over there; they'd left the chairs out; the town was asleep, and
it was beautiful moonlight--"

"To commune with him? What about?"

"You."

"Why?" she asked, plainly mystified.

"I stood in need of good counsel," he answered, cheerfully, "or a
friendly word, perhaps, and--as I sat there--after a while it came."

"What was it?"

"To forget that I was sodden with selfishness; to pretend not to be as
full of meanness as I really was! Doesn't that seem to be Eskew's own
voice?"

"Weren't you happy last night, Joe?"

"Oh, it was all right," he said, quickly. "Don't you worry."

And at this old speech of his she broke into a little laugh of which he
had no comprehension.

"Mamie came to see me early this morning," she said, after they had
walked on in silence for a time. "Everything is all right with her
again; that is, I think it will be. Eugene is coming home. And," she
added, thoughtfully, "it will be best for him to have his old place on
the Tocsin again. She showed me his letter, and I liked it. I think
he's been through the fire--"

Joe's distorted smile appeared. "And has come out gold?" he asked.

"No," she laughed; "but nearer it! And I think he'll try to be more
worth her caring for. She has always thought that his leaving the
Tocsin in the way he did was heroic. That was her word for it. And it
WAS the finest thing he ever did."

"I can't figure Eugene out." Joe shook his head. "There's something
behind his going away that I don't understand." This was altogether
the truth; nor was there ever to come a time when either he or Mamie
would understand what things had determined the departure of Eugene
Bantry; though Mamie never questioned, as Joe did, the reasons for it,
or doubted those Eugene had given her, which were the same he had given
her father. For she was content with his return.

Again the bells across the Square rang out their chime. The paths were
decorously enlivened with family and neighborhood groups, bound
churchward; and the rumble of the organ, playing the people into their
pews, shook on the air. And Joe knew that he must speak quickly, if he
was to say what he had planned to say, before he and Ariel went into
the church.

"Ariel?" He tried to compel his voice to a casual cheerfulness, but it
wo