iled at him, Dr. Fenneben noticed how her hand on the
lattice shook.

"And I want to thank you, Mrs. Marian, for your bravery and goodness on
the night I was assaulted here." Fenneben was a gentleman to the core
and his courtesy was charming. "I meant to find you long ago, but my
brother's death, with my own long illness, and your absence, and my many
duties--" He paused with a smile.

"Oh, Lloyd, Lloyd, on an evening like this, why do you come here?"

The woman stood in the light now, a tragic figure of sorrow. And she was
not yet forty.

Dr. Fenneben caught his breath and the light seemed to go out before
him.

"Marian, oh, Marian! After all these years, do I find you here? They
said you were dead." He caught her in his arms and held her close to his
breast.

"Lots of folks spoons round the Saxon House, so I went away and lef
'em," Bug explained to Vic once afterward.

And that accounted for little Bug sitting lonely on the flat stone by
the bend in the river where Dennie and Burgess found him later.

"So you have stood between me and that assassin all these years,
even when the lies against me made you doubt my love. Oh, Marian, the
strength of a woman's heart!" Fenneben declared, as, side by side, black
hair and the gray near together, these long-separated lovers rebuilt
their world.

"And this little child brought you here at last. 'A little child shall
lead them,'" the woman murmured.

"Yes, Bug is a gift of God." Lloyd Fenneben was bending over her. "He is
Victor Burleigh's nephew, who found him in a deserted place--"

A shriek cut the evening air and she who had been known as Mrs. Marian
lay in a faint at Fenneben's feet.

"Tell me, Marian, what this means."

Lloyd Fenneben had restored her to consciousness and she was resting,
white and trembling, in his arms.

"My little Bug, my baby, Burgess!" she sobbed. "Bond Saxon, in a drunken
fit, killed his father. Then Tom Gresh carried him away to save him from
Bond, too, so Tom declared, but I did not believe him. Bond never harmed
a little child. Tom said he meant no harm and that Bug was stolen from
where he had left him. It was then that my hair turned white. Tom tried
once, a year ago in December, to make me believe he could bring Bug back
to me if I would care for him--for that wicked murderer! Oh, Lloyd!"

She nestled close in Dr. Fenneben's protecting arms, and shivered at the
thought.

"And you named him Burgess for your own name. Does