elf. You gave him a fine start, and if he
had lived he would have made a great success. But I must stop-- I must
stop! I think I know what Tilly's good news is. Joel has been trying to
rent the Marsden farm. He put in a bid for it. It is a big place, and
Mr. Marsden furnishes supplies. Maybe Joel has got it. I hope so, for he
is at the end of his rope."

"The good news is not for poor Joel, Mrs. Trott. The truth is that Tilly
wants to tell you the same thing I've come to tell you. You know I said
that I never was fully convinced about John. Now what if I was to tell
you that I went to New York to make sure?"

"Make sure? Make sure that--that John--" she began and stopped.

He nodded, holding her bewildered stare by his fixed eyes. "I found out
enough up there to be sure, Mrs. Trott."

"You mean that John-- Why, you _can't_ mean that--?"

Again he nodded. "I've been afraid to shock you with the good news, but
he is alive and prospering. I was with him a week."

She was convinced. She sat white and limp. She put her thin hands to her
face as if to hide her joy from him. He saw her breast heaving. He heard
her sob in an effort to control her emotion, and then she became quiet.

* * * * *

That night at home Cavanaugh wrote a long letter to John. "Something
must be done," he wrote, in one place. "If you had seen that
transformed human soul as I saw her there in her lonely log hut and
heard her talk of you and your babyhood and the thousands of regrets she
has for what she has done and left undone, your kind heart would have
melted with pity as mine did. My old mother's passed on, John, but if I
could call her back I'd give my last breath to furnish her with a
minute's joy. You could give yours years of comfort and happiness. Do
you know what I'd do if I was you? I'd come here and get her and take
her back to New York with me, and let her have some of the things she
used to hunger for and which may have caused her to do as she did. She
is poor; she needs you; the two good friends who have been helping her
so long really haven't the means to keep it up. You must come--you
really must. If you don't it will darken the end of your life. I love
you too much to let you neglect this sublime duty. Men of the greatest
brains have married repentant women and never regretted it; surely a man
as noble as you are, and as able as you are, can afford to pardon the
woman who gave him his very life."