ned to the
sick room, where Mary and the Colonel were sitting at the bedside.

"Well?"

Mrs. Parsons bent her head, and the silent tears rolled down her cheeks.
The others understood only too well.

"The Lord's will be done," whispered the father. "Blessed be the name of
the Lord!"

They looked at James with aching hearts. All their bitterness had long
gone, and they loved him again with the old devotion of past time.

"D'you think I was hard on him, dear?" said the Colonel.

Mary took his hand and held it affectionately.

"Don't worry about that," she said. "I'm sure he never felt any
bitterness towards you."

James now was comatose. But sometimes a reflex movement would pass
through him, a sort of quiver, which seemed horribly as though the soul
were parting from his body; and feebly he clutched at the bed-clothes.

"Was it for this that he was saved from war and pestilence?" muttered
the Colonel, hopelessly.

* * *

But the Fates love nothing better than to mock the poor little creatures
whose destinies ceaselessly they weave, refusing the wretched heart's
desire till long waiting has made it listless, and giving with both
hands only when the gift entails destruction.... James did not die; the
passionate love of those three persons who watched him day by day and
night by night seemed to have exorcised the might of Death. He grew a
little better; his vigorous frame battled for life with all the force of
that unknown mysterious power which cements into existence the myriad
wandering atoms. He was listless, indifferent to the issue; but the will
to live fought for him, and he grew better. Quickly he was out of
danger.

His father and Mary and Mrs. Parsons looked at one another almost with
surprise, hardly daring to believe that they had saved him. They had
suffered so much, all three of them, that they hesitated to trust their
good fortune, superstitiously fearing that if they congratulated
themselves too soon, some dreadful thing would happen to plunge back
their beloved into deadly danger. But at last he was able to get up, to
sit in the garden, now luxuriant with the ripe foliage of August; and
they felt the load of anxiety gradually lift itself from their
shoulders. They ventured again to laugh, and to talk of little trivial
things, and of the future. They no longer had that panic terror when
they looked at him, pale and weak and emaciated.

Then again the old couple thanked Mary for what she had do