has had bad
news, or sudden grief?"

"Not that I know of, Doctor. Harold had just told him that he must start
for Australia to-morrow when Father nearly fainted. That is all that
happened."

"Then, I see no occasion for this. There is nothing organically wrong so
far as I can discover. But I shall take his blood pressure to-morrow
just to be on the safe side. Call me any time during the night if
anything out of the ordinary happens. Keep him perfectly quiet. Good
night."

Harold called Elizabeth from the head of the stair.

"Excuse me, Mr. McGowan. I shall send my brother right down."

"Please, don't do that. Your father will need you both. I shall be
going."

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, offering her hand. "You will come again,
very soon, won't you?"

"I shall call in the morning to inquire about your father."

"Thank you. Good night."

"Good night."

Mr. McGowan took his hat from the hall-tree and left the house. As he
walked very slowly through the avenue of trees a strange passage from
the Bible kept tantalizing his attention. "Behold, a shaking, and the
bones came together, bone to his bone.... Then there was no breath in
them.... Then from the four winds the breath came into them, and they
lived."

Half provoked for allowing these words to arouse suspicion, he tried to
cast them out. But the effect of them remained. He had witnessed the
coming together of the dry bones of a past. Were the four winds from the
four corners of the earth to give them life? Had he unwittingly helped
to furnish the dry bones with breath?

He had gone but a short distance when he heard footsteps behind him.

CHAPTER IV

"One minute, Mr. McGowan," called Harold Fox. "Come with me, please."

He drew the minister aside into the path that led into the lower
gardens. Once in the deeper shadows, Harold stopped.

"What have you to do with this man Phillips?" he demanded.

"What's that? Why, Mr. Fox----"

"I'd no sooner got Dad to his room than he began to mumble that you were
to blame for his condition," cut in the lawyer. "He connected you in no
favorable way with some woman in Australia. This man Phillips was
involved, too, from what I could gather. I was questioning him when the
doctor arrived, and after he was gone I could get nothing more out of
him. I hate to go to Australia with him like this, and I have every
reason to surmise that I won't need to go if you tell me all you know."

"I'm very sorry for