Dalton Street and announced the stopping of a
heavy motor before the door. The rector had found Mr. Bentley in the
library, alone, seated with bent head in front of the fire, and had
simply announced the intention of Eldon Parr to come. From the chair
Hodder had unobtrusively chosen, near the window, his eyes rested on the
noble profile of his friend. What his thoughts were, Hodder could not
surmise; for he seemed again, marvellously, to have regained the outward
peace which was the symbol of banishment from the inner man of all
thought of self.

"I have prepared her for Mr. Parr's coming," he said to Hodder at
length.

And yet he had left her there! Hodder recalled the words Mr. Bentley had
spoken, "It is her place." Her place, the fallen woman's, the place she
had earned by a great love and a great renunciation, of which no earthly
power might henceforth deprive her....

Then came the motor, the ring at the door, the entrance of Eldon Parr
into the library. He paused, a perceptible moment, on the threshold
as his look fell upon the man whom he had deprived of home and
fortune,--yes and of the one woman in the world for them both. Mr.
Bentley had risen, and stood facing him. That shining, compassionate
gaze should have been indeed a difficult one to meet. Vengeance was
the Lord's, in truth! What ordeal that Horace Bentley in anger and
retribution might have devised could have equalled this!

And yet Eldon Parr did meet it--with an effort. Hodder, from his corner,
detected the effort, though it were barely discernible, and would have
passed a scrutiny less rigid,--the first outward and visible sign of
the lesion within. For a brief instant the banker's eyes encountered
Mr. Bentley's look with a flash of the old defiance, and fell, and then
swept the room.

"Will you come this way, Mr. Parr?" Mr. Bentley said, indicating the
door of the bedroom.

Alison followed. Her eyes, wet with unheeded tears, had never left Mr.
Bentley's face. She put out her hand to him....

Eldon Parr had halted abruptly. He knew from Alison the circumstances
in which his son had died, and how he had been brought hither to this
house, but the sight of the woman beside the bed fanned into flame his
fury against a world which had cheated him, by such ignominious means,
of his dearest wish. He grew white with sudden passion.

"What is she doing here?" he demanded.

Kate Marcy, who had not seemed to hear his entrance, raised up to him
a f