I didn't make it because I hadn't time. She told me
what you were doing, and I hurried off to stop you. Don't speak yet, let
me finish. I feel I have the right, because I know--I know I was sent
here just now for a purpose--guided to come here." He paused to allow
his words to have their full weight. Whether she would perceive his
meaning remained to be seen.

"I understand." She spoke quietly. "Doctor Hoyle sent you to be helped
like he was--and you have been right kind to more than us. You've helped
that many it seems like you were sent here for we-all as well as for
your own sake, but that can't help me now, Doctor; it--"

"Ah, yes it can. I'm far from well yet. I shall be, but I must stay on
for a long time, and I want some interest here. I want to see things of
my own growing. The ground up around my little cabin is stony and very
poor, and I want to rent this little farm of yours. Listen--I'll pay
enough so you need not sell your cattle, and you--you can go on with
your weaving. You can work in the house again as you have always done.
Sometime, when your mother is stronger, you can take up your life again
and go to school--as you meant to live--can't you?"

"That can never be now. If you take the farm or not, I must bide on here
in the old way. I must take up the life my mother lived and my
grandmother, and hers before her. It is mine, forever, to live it that
way--or die."

"Why do you talk so?"

"God knows, but I can't tell you. Thank you, suh. I will be right glad
to rent you the farm. I'd a heap rather you had it than any one else I
ever knew, for we care more for it than you would guess, but for the
rest--no. I must bide and work till I die; only maybe I can save little
Hoyle and give him a chance to learn something, for he never could
work--being like he is."

Thryng's eyes danced with joy as he regarded her. "Hoyle is not going to
be always as he is, and he shall have the chance to learn something
also. Look up, Miss Cassandra, look squarely into my eyes and laugh. Be
happy, Miss Cassandra, and laugh. I say it."

She laughed softly then. She could not help it.

"Wasn't that what the 'Voices' were saying last night when you
followed?"

"Yes, yes. They seemed like they were calling, 'Hope, hope,' but they
were not the real 'Voices.' You made it."

"Yes, I made it; and I was truly calling that to you. And you replied;
you came to me."

"Ah, but that is different from the 'Voices' she heard."

"