been the lost clue, so long sought, to
their hiding-place.

Snow began falling as the daylight wore away, and the coach wheels made
no noise. All night and all the next day, they rode, and it was midnight
before they came to the town where the two wanderers had taken refuge.

The village was very still, and the air was frosty and cold. Only a
single light was to be seen, coming from a window beside a church. This
was the house which the Stranger knew sheltered those they sought, but
both he and Kit felt a strange fear as they saw that light--the only one
in the whole village.

They left the driver to take the horses to the inn and approached the
building afoot. They went quite close and looked through the window. In
the room an old man bent low over a fire crooning to himself, and Kit,
seeing that it was his old master, opened the door, ran in, knelt by him
and caught his hand.

The old grandfather did not recognize Kit. He believed him a spirit, as
he thought many spirits had talked to him that day. He was much changed,
and it seemed as if some great blow or grief had crazed him. He had a
dress of little Nell's in his hand and smoothed and patted it as he
muttered that she had been asleep--asleep a long time now, and was
marble cold and would not wake.

"Her little homely dress!" he said. "And see here--these shoes--how worn
they are! You see where her feet went bare upon the ground. They told me
afterward that the stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me
that. No, no, God bless her! And I have remembered since how she walked
behind me, that I might not see how lame she was, but yet she had my
hand in hers and seemed to lead me still."

So he muttered on, and the cheeks of the others were wet with tears, for
they had begun to understand the sad truth.

Kit could not speak, but the Stranger did: "You speak of little Nell,"
he said. "Do you remember, long ago, another child, too, who loved you
when you were a child yourself? Say that you had a brother, long
forgotten, who now at last came back to you to be what you were then to
him. Give me but one word, dear brother, to say you know me, and life
will still be precious to us again."

The old man shook his head, for grief had killed all memory. Pushing
them aside, he went into the next room, calling little Nell's name
softly as he went.

They followed. Kit sobbed as they entered, for there on her bed little
Nell lay dead.

Dear, gentle, patient, nob