his wife to make sure of the thing she was secretly craving stabbed him
to the core of his being, and yet he told himself that it was his duty
to withhold nothing concerning his rival from her.

"Reading him as I'd read myself," Joel answered. "I thought he'd remain
constant, but to-day I wormed it out of Mr. Cavanaugh."

"Wormed what out--_what out_?" Tilly sank back into her chair,
open-mouthed, her eyes gleaming portals to breathless expectancy. "You
can't mean that Mr. Cavanaugh thinks--actually thinks that John
still--?"

Joel bowed his head in the relentless starlight, sat down as from sheer
frailty, and was silent. The undulating landscape, the fields, the
meadows, the woodland, the hills and streams seemed to hold their vast
breath with his. Suddenly Tilly rose. It was as if she were about to
stand behind his chair, as was her wont at times, put her hands upon his
shoulders, and kiss his thorn-crowned brow, but she did not. She went
slowly into the cabin. He heard her feet--feet he knew to be winged with
sudden, far-reaching joy--treading the boards as she went to the bed of
the children. What was she doing? he wondered. Her step ceased. He
pictured her as seated by the side of the children's bed. Was she
pitying him or rejoicing? Why ask? He knew. And his love was so divine a
thing that, but for his throes of death-agony, he could have rejoiced
with her.

CHAPTER IX

Cavanaugh had a duty to perform. He had decided to take on himself the
act of informing Mrs. Trott of her son's survival. So, the next morning
after his colloquy with Eperson he walked out to the cabin the widow
occupied near the home of Eperson. As he passed Joel's place he saw from
the distance that Joel was at work in his corn-field, and, watching a
few minutes, he saw Tilly come out and feed her chickens, so he judged
that Mrs. Trott had not yet been told the important news.

Walking on, he soon reached the isolated cabin in the woods that he was
seeking. It had but a single room, one window in front, and a crude
chimney made from unhewn stones and clay. The door facing the little
road was open, and as he drew near, Mrs. Trott, hearing his step, came
to the door and looked out.

She was now quite gray, and wore a plain dress of homespun unadorned in
any way save for a neat white collar and an old cameo pin which had been
a gift of her husband's. A touch of her old beauty still lingered in the
contour of her face and good basic