said, half to herself, half to the men
who walked, sombre and silent, beside her, and the shadow of a smile
hovered on her lips. They looked at her wonderingly. The night of
terror had taken toll of her, and she was pale as the last star before
dawn. Yet her white beauty framed in hanging hair shone like some rare
thing that had passed through fire and come out unscathed and purified
in the passing. "_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_" is a frivolous
French saying, but, like many frivolous phrases, has its basic roots in
the truth. It was true enough of Christine Chaine in that hour. She
had suffered and was beautiful. Dour old Andrew McNeil gave a sigh for
the years of life that lay behind him, and a glance at the face of the
other man; then, like a wise being, he said,

"Well, I'll be going on down."

So Christine and Dick Saltire walked alone.

"Let us hurry," she said suddenly, quickening her pace. "I feel as
though something may have happened."

But all was silent at the farm. It was still too early even for the
servants to be astir, and the big front door stood open as she and the
other woman had left it an hour or so agone.

She left Saltire in the stoep and went within. The little girls slept
peacefully, ignorant of the absence of their brother.

All seemed unchanged, yet Christine's searching eye found one thing
that was unusual--a twist of paper stuck through the slats of the
shutter. In a moment, she had it untwisted and was reading the words
printed in ungainly letters upon it.

"Do not worry. Roddy quite safe. Will come back when his father
returns."

"I knew," she whispered to herself, "I knew that joy cometh." She
looked in the mirror and was ashamed of the disarray she saw there, yet
thought that, even so, a man who loved her might perhaps find her fair.
As a last thought, she took Roddy's two yellow roses and stuck them in
the bosom of her gown. Then she went back to the stoep and, showing
Saltire the paper, told him the story of the whispering thing that had
sighed so often for Roddy's safety outside her window.

"I feel sure, somehow, that, after all, he is safe, and with that
friend who knew more than we did, who knew all the tragedy of the
mother and the other two little sons, and feared for Roddy from the
first."

Saltire made no answer, for he was looking at the roses and then into
her eyes; and when she tried to return the look, the weight of the
little stones was on h