e this."

"No," she agreed, "I realize it. And I cannot stay, much longer, in Park
Street. I must go back to New York, until you send for me, dear. And
there are things I must do. Do you know, even though I antagonize him
so--my father, I mean--even though he suspects and bitterly resents any
interest in you, my affection for you, and that I have lingered because
of you, I believe, in his way, he has liked to have me here."

"I can understand it," Hodder said.

"It's because you are bigger than I, although he has quarrelled with
you so bitterly. I don't know what definite wrongs he has done to other
persons. I don't wish to know. I don't ask you to tell me what passed
between you that night. Once you said that you had an affection for
him--that he was lonely. He is lonely. In these last weeks, in spite of
his anger, I can see that he suffers terribly. It is a tragedy, because
he will never give in."

"It is a tragedy." Hodder's tone was agitated.

"I wonder if he realizes a little" she began, and paused. "Now that
Preston has come home--"

"Your brother?" Hodder exclaimed.

"Yes. I forgot to tell you. I don't know why he came," she faltered.
"I suppose he has got into some new trouble. He seems changed. I can't
describe it now, but I will tell you about it.... It's the first time
we've all three been together since my mother died, for Preston wasn't
back from college when I went to Paris to study...."

They stood together on the pavement before the massive house, fraught
with so many and varied associations for Hodder. And as he looked up
at it, his eye involuntarily rested upon the windows of the boy's
room where Eldon Parr had made his confession. Alison startled him by
pronouncing his name, which came with such unaccustomed sweetness from
her lips. "You will write me to-morrow," she said, "after you have seen
the bishop?"

"Yes, at once. You mustn't let it worry you."

"I feel as if I had cast off that kind of worry forever. It is only--the
other worries from which we do not escape, from which we do not wish to
escape."

With a wonderful smile she had dropped his hands and gone in at the
entrance, when a sound made them turn, the humming of a motor. And even
as they looked it swung into Park Street.

"It's a taxicab!" she said. As she spoke it drew up almost beside
them, instead of turning in at the driveway, the door opened, and a man
alighted.

"Preston!" Alison exclaimed.

He started, turning fr