tant. If so, would he dare visit it? He thought not.
Neither would he care to see again his mother's old home.

Later, when the sun was up, he heard Cavanaugh on the porch, and he
rose, dressed, and joined him. Presently breakfast was announced. How
the cozy table in its snowy expanse appealed to him--the food he used to
like, the open door looking out on a flower-garden, a plot of dewy
grass, and a row of beehives! He had a sense of wanting to live that way
always. He was weary of the life that he had just left, and the
ephemeral things he had won. His desire for rest was that of an old man
whose years are spent. Somehow he felt that he and the Cavanaughs were
on a par as to age and experience. They had suffered mildly through long
lives--he had suffered keenly in a shorter one.

It was understood between him and Cavanaugh that the first thing to be
done was for him to visit his mother. So, when breakfast was over, they
fared forth in the cool, brisk air for that walk in the country. As they
neared the cabin Cavanaugh saw Joel's house in the distance. He might
have descried either Joel or Tilly about the place by careful looking,
but was afraid that even a glance in that direction might attract John's
attention. Presently Mrs. Trott's cabin was before them, and, leaving
his companion in the edge of the wood, Cavanaugh went ahead to prepare
the widow for the surprise before her. Presently he came back.

"I must say she was awfully excited," he began. "I was sorry for her.
She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see
you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home,
John, and so I'll turn back."

"A cabin--a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John
reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so
many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother.
He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved
for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it
required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into
streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful
flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and
surrounding her still beautiful eyes.

"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms
outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I
didn't know it was like this."

She seemed unable to say