etly devouring her. And she
was only seventeen and quite alone in her trouble. She must bear it all
unassisted and smile, which she did with heavenly sweetness, when the
magic threshold was passed and she stood in her invalid's presence,
overshadowed though it ever was by the great Dread.

And Mr. Challoner? Let those endless walks of his through the woods
and over the hills tell his story if they can; or his rapidly whitening
hair, and lagging step. He had been a strong man before his trouble, and
had the stroke which laid him low been limited to one quick, sharp blow
he might have risen above it after a while and been ready to encounter
life again. But this long drawn out misery was proving too much for him.
The sight of Brotherson, though they never really met, acted like acid
upon a wound, and it was not till six days had passed and the dreaded
Sunday was at hand, that he slept with any sense of rest or went his way
about the town without that halting at the corners which betrayed his
perpetual apprehension of a most undesirable encounter.

The reason for this change will be apparent in the short conversation
he held with a man he had come upon one evening in the small park just
beyond the workmen's dwellings.

"You see I am here," was the stranger's low greeting.

"Thank God," was Mr. Challoner's reply. "I could not have faced
to-morrow alone and I doubt if Miss Scott could have found the requisite
courage. Does she know that you are here?"

"I stopped at her door."

"Was that safe?"

"I think so. Mr. Brotherson--the Brooklyn one,--is up in his shed. He
sleeps there now, I am told, and soundly too I've no doubt."

"What is he making?"

"What half the inventors on both sides of the water are engaged upon
just now. A monoplane, or a biplane, or some machine for carrying men
through the air. I know, for I helped him with it. But you'll find that
if he succeeds in this undertaking, and I believe he will, nothing short
of fame awaits him. His invention has startling points. But I'm not
going to give them away. I'll be true enough to him for that. As an
inventor he has my sympathy; but--Well, we will see what we shall
see, to-morrow. You say that he is bound to be present when Miss Scott
relates her tragic story. He won't be the only unseen listener. I've
made my own arrangements with Miss Scott. If he feels the need of
watching her and his brother Oswald, I feel the need of watching him."

"You take a burden