. I saw surprise become craftiness and fear,
distrust. I saw in her eyes the beginning of that hate which I believe
has never, since that irresponsible moment, diminished.

"You had best leave go of me, Mr. Estabrook," she said calmly. "You
would not act so if the old Judge was alive and here. Nor his daughter,
sir!"

The rebuke, you may believe, was enough.

"I'm sorry," I said.

The old woman, however, wrung her hands and looked toward the room above
as if to indicate to me that nothing was important but the fact that
Julianna had possession of the Judge's _post-mortem_ message.

"Let her tell you if she will," she cried. Then covering her face with
her fat hands, as if to hide some terrible picture of the imagination,
she stumbled forward out of the library.

I have often wondered since, as I wonder to-night, when those spectres
have arisen again, what that old servant meant. At the time it never
occurred to me that but one thing could happen. I had the utmost
confidence in Julianna, and indeed, without thinking much of my own
troubles, I passed that long vigil in the library only with regret that
I could not wrest away from the true and noble woman who had promised to
be my wife, all the terrible grief which, alone in the chamber above,
she must have been suffering. For the first time, I think, in all my
life, which, by training and inherited instincts, had been devoted, I
might say, to the welfare of the Estabrook name and of myself, I felt my
mind--and even my body--filled with a strange and passionate desire to
be the instrument of good, not for myself, but in the name of others and
perhaps in the name of God. My eyes filled with tears, springing not so
much from grief as from belief in myself, not so much from weakness as
from strength. I called upon an unknown force that I felt to be near me
and directing me.

"Save her from misfortune," I said aloud in that silent room. "Protect
her. Comfort her."

The old dog, as if he now understood, raised his head and licked my
hand. I realized then that the wind had died down, and, looking up, I
saw that the balcony and garden were lit by the pale rays of the morning
moon, that the stars shone clearly again through the still air, and that
the odor of flowers, nodding below the window, perfumed the Judge's
study. The pipe, with ashes tumbling out upon the table, by curious
chance had not been moved from the place where he had laid it down.

It seemed to me that