up
at once to tell me. Good morning."

She walked rapidly down the road beside the house. Father Honore turned
to look after her. How many, many lives there were like
that!--unselfish, sacrificing, loving, helpful, yet unknown, unthought
of. He watched the slight figure, the shoulders bowed already a little,
but the step still firm and light, till it passed from sight. Then he
entered the kitchen and encountered Mrs. Caukins.

"I never was so glad to see any living soul as I am you, Father Honore,"
was her greeting; she looked up from the lemon she was squeezing; "I
don't dare to leave her till she gets a regular nurse. It's enough to
break your heart to see her lying there staring straight before her and
not saying a word--not even to the doctor. I told the Colonel when he
was here a little while ago that I couldn't stand it much longer; it's
getting on my nerves--if she'd only say _something_, I don't care what!"

She paused in concocting the lemonade to wipe her eyes on a corner of
her apron.

"Mrs. Caukins, I wish you would say to Mrs. Googe that I am here and
would like to speak with her before I leave town this afternoon. You
might say I expect to be away for a few days and it is necessary that I
should see her now."

"You don't mean to say you're going to leave us right in the lurch,
'fore we know anything about Champney!--Why, what will the Colonel do
without you? You've been his right hand man. He's all broken up; that
one night's work nearly killed him, and he hasn't seemed himself
since--"

Father Honore interrupted this flow of ejaculatory torrent.

"I've spoken to the Colonel about my going, Mrs. Caukins. He agrees with
me that no harm can come of my leaving here for a few days just at this
time."

"I'll tell her, Father Honore; I'm going up this minute with the
lemonade; but it's ten to one she won't see you; she wouldn't see the
rector last week--oh, dear me!" She groaned and left the room.

She was back again in a few minutes, her eyes wide with excitement.

"She says you can come up, Father Honore, and you'd better go up quick
before she gets a chance to change her mind."

He went without a word. When Mrs. Caukins heard him on the stair and
caught the sound of his rap on the door, she turned to Ellen and spoke
emphatically, but with trembling lips:

"I don't believe the archangel Gabriel himself could look at you more
comforting than Father Honore does; if _he_ can't help her, the Lord
h