after making arrangements for the funeral of Scoville with
the women who had come in, started to go out, when Mr. Hardy rose, and
they went away together.

"Mr. Jones," said Mr. Hardy, as they walked along, "I have an
explanation and a confession to make. I haven't time to make it now,
but I want to say that I have met God face to face within the past
twenty-four hours, and I am conscious for the first time in years of
the intensely selfish life I have lived. I need your prayers and help.
And I want to serve the church and do my duty there, as I never before
have done it. I have not supported your work as I should. I want you
to think of me this week as ready to help in anything in my power.
Will you accept my apology for my contempt of your request a week ago?
I will come into the meeting Thursday night and help in any way
possible."

Mr. Jones' eyes filled with tears. He grasped Mr. Hardy's hand and
said:

"Brother, God bless you! Let me be of service to you in any way I can."

Mr. Hardy felt a little better for the partial confession, and parted
with his minister at the next corner, going down to his office.

It was now ten o'clock, and the day seemed to him cruelly brief for the
work he had to do. He entered the office, and almost the first thing
he saw on his desk was the following letter, addressed to him, but
written in a disguised hand:

"_Mr. Hardy_,--Us in the casting room don't need no looking after but
maybe the next pot of hot iron that explodes will be next the offis if
you thinks we have bodies but no sols some morning you will wake up
beleving another thing. We ain't so easy led as sum folks supposes.
Better look to house and employ spesul patrol; if you do we will blak
his face for him."

There was no signature to this threatening scrawl, which was purposely
misspelled and ungrammatically composed. Mr. Hardy had received
threats before, and paid little attention to them. He prided himself
on his steady nerves, and his contempt of all such methods used to
scare him. Only a coward, he reasoned, would ever write an anonymous
letter of such a character. Still, this morning he felt disturbed.
His peculiar circumstances made the whole situation take on a more
vivid colouring. Besides all that, he could not escape the conviction
that he was in a certain sense responsible for the accident in the
casting room. It was not his particular business to inspect machinery.
But his attenti