ont door softly behind him, and on feet
shod with light-heartedness covered the road to his own house in a few
minutes. He flung aside his coat, took his violin, and played and played
till late into the night.

Two of the sisters of The Mystic Rose, who had been over to Quarry End
Park nursing a sick quarryman's wife throughout the day, paused to
listen as they passed the house. One of them was Sister Ste. Croix.

The violin exulted, rejoiced, sang of love heavenly, of love earthly, of
all loves of life and nature; it sang of repentance, of expiation, of
salvation--

"I can bear no more," whispered Sister Ste. Croix to her companion, and
the hand she laid on the one that was raised to hush her, was not only
cold, it was damp with the sweat of the agony of remembrance.

The strains of the violin's song accompanied them to their own door.

VII

The Saturday-night frequenters of The Greenbush have changed with the
passing years like all else in Flamsted. The Greenbush itself is no
longer a hostelry, but a cosy club-house purveyed for, to the
satisfaction of every member, by its old landlord, Augustus Buzzby. The
Club's membership, of both young and old men, is large and increasing
with the growth of the town; but the old frequenters of The Greenbush
bar-room head the list--Colonel Caukins and Octavius Buzzby paying the
annual dues of their first charter member, old Joel Quimber, now in his
eighty-seventh year.

The former office is a grill room, and made one with the back parlor,
now the club restaurant. On this Saturday night in March, the
white-capped chef--Augustus prided himself in keeping abreast the
times--was busy in the grill room, and Augustus himself was
superintending the laying of a round table for ten. The Colonel was to
celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday by giving a little supper.

"Nothing elaborate, Buzzby," he said a week before the event, "a fine
saddle of mutton--Southdown--some salmon trout, a stiff bouillon for
Quimber, you know his masticatory apparatus is no longer equal to this
whole occasion, and a chive salad. _The_ cake Mrs. Caukins elects to
provide herself, and I need not assure you, who know her culinary
powers, that it will be a _ne plus ultra_ of a cake, both in material
and execution; fruits, coffee and cheese--Roquefort. Your accomplished
chef can fill in the interstices. Here are the cards--Quimber at my
right, if you please."

Augustus looked at the cards and smiled.

"All