t to the right, and so far inferior."

"Of course," said Erica, "I can see that a certain amount of immediate
good may result from this disaster. It will make the owners of other
mines more careful."

"And what of the hundred unseen workings that will result from it?" said
Donovan, smiling. "In the first shock of horror one can not even glimpse
the larger view, but later on--"

He paused for a minute; they were down in the valley close to the little
church; he opened the gate and led the way to a bench under the great
yew tree. Sitting here, they could see the recumbent white cross with
its ever-fresh crown of white flowers. Erica knew something of the story
it told.

"Shall I tell you what turned me from an anti-theist to an atheist?"
said Donovan. "It was the horror of knowing that a little child's life
had been ruined by carelessness. I had been taught to believe in a
terrific phantom who was severely just; but when it seemed that the one
quality of justice was gone, then I took refuge in the conviction that
there could be no God at all. That WAS a refuge for the time, for it is
better to believe in no God than to believe in an immoral God and it was
long years before a better refuge found me. Yet, looking back now
over these seven-and-twenty years, I see how that one little child's
suffering has influenced countless lives! How it was just the most
beautiful thing that could have happened to her!"

Erica did not speak for a moment, she read half dreamily the words
engraved on the tombstone. Nearly sixteen years since that short,
uneventful life had passed into the unseen, and yet little Dot was at
this moment influencing the world's history.

She was quite cheerful again as they walked home, and, indeed, her
relief about her father's recovery was so great that she could not be
unhappy for long about anything. They found Raeburn on the terrace with
Ralph and Dolly at his heels, and the two-year-old baby, who went by the
name of Pickle, on his shoulder.

"I shall quite miss these bairnies," he said as Donovan joined them.

"Gee up, horsey! Gee up!" shouted Pickle from his lofty perch.

"And oh, daddy, may we go into Gleyshot wiv you?" said Dolly, coaxingly.
"Elica's father's going to give me a playcat."

"And me a whip," interposed Ralph. "We may come with you, father, mayn't
we?"

"Oh! Yes," said Donovan, smiling; "if Mr. Raeburn doesn't mind a crowded
carriage."

Erica had gone into the house.

"I do