w you must just rest a while."

They had brought him into the front room "for quiet," Katie said, as he
looked round in surprise; "rest and think about it," she whispered,
hardly venturing to say more. Gradually it came back to him that
something had happened. By this time breakfast was over, and worship,
and Katie brought Mr Maxwell in and left him there.

Jacob Holt would not stay to breakfast, though Davie and his mother had
asked him to stay. Before he went he gave the squire's letter to Davie.

"Give it to your grandfather, but do not read it," said he.

He had something to say to Mr Maxwell also.

"I don't know just how much Mr Fleming knows of what happened long ago.
Hugh Fleming, after much entreaty from several of us, signed my
father's name where he ought not. He alone had the skill to do it. It
was to save--some of us from much trouble. He was not in the scrape.
He was not to be benefited personally by it, except that he was
persuaded that some foolish deed of his could be more easily kept from
his father's knowledge if he helped to screen the rest by yielding. If
he had stayed at home and met it, it would have been well; my father
made no trouble about it. But he went away--and died. And you must
tell his father--"

Jacob turned his back upon the minister for a full minute, and then
without another word went away.

It was Mr Maxwell who read the letter to Mr Fleming after all. There
were only a few lines more than Katie read: "I trust God has forgiven
me, and that He will keep me safe from sin. Forgive me, dear father and
mother and James."

And then his name and another line: "I will make up to you, dear father,
for all you suffer now for me."

"And He has kept him safe," said the minister, "all these years."

Katie came now and then, and looked in, but she did not speak, except
once to say that grannie was sleeping still. Even Katie never knew how
the minister and her grandfather passed the long morning. It was noon
when she went in and told them that dinner was nearly ready, and that
grannie was awake and asking for them. Afterward Mr Maxwell told Miss
Elizabeth something about it.

How as it gradually became clear to the father that his dear son's light
had not gone out in darkness, but that he had repented of his sin, and
confessed it, and had been as he trusted forgiven, his grief and shame
and penitence were even deeper than his joy.

"To think that I should have been misdo