"Who is it?" she said again, and her hand sought the door-post
tremblingly. "Who is it?"

Then I went to her. At my first step she gave a little cry and swayed,
and had I not taken her in my arms I believe she would have fallen.

"David!" she said, "David, is it you? I--I cannot see very well. Why did
you not speak?" She looked at Lindy and smiled. "It is because I am an
old woman, Lindy," and she lifted her hand to her forehead. "See, my
hair is white--I shock you, David."

Leaning on my shoulder, she led me through a little bedroom in the rear
into a tiny garden court beyond, a court teeming with lavish colors
and redolent with the scent of flowers. A white shell walk divided the
garden and ended at the door of a low outbuilding, from the chimney of
which blue smoke curled upward in the evening air. Mrs. Temple drew me
almost fiercely towards a bench against the adobe wall.

"Where is he?" she said. "Where is he, David?"

The suddenness of the question staggered me; I hesitated.

"I do not know," I answered.

I could not look into her face and say it. The years of torment and
suffering were written there in characters not to be mistaken. Sarah
Temple, the beauty, was dead indeed. The hope which threatened to light
again the dead fires in the woman's eyes frightened me.

"Ah," she said sharply, "you are deceiving me. It is not like you,
David. You are deceiving me. Tell me, tell me, for the love of God,
who has brought me to bear chastisement." And she gripped my arm with a
strength I had not thought in her.

"Listen," I said, trying to calm myself as well as her. "Listen, Mrs.
Temple." I could not bring myself to call her otherwise.

"You are keeping him away from me," she cried. "Why are you keeping him
away? Have I not suffered enough? David, I cannot live long. I do not
dare to die--until he has forgiven me."

I forced her, gently as I might, to sit on the bench, and I seated
myself beside her.

"Listen," I said, with a sternness that hid my feelings, and perforce
her expression changed again to a sad yearning, "you must hear me. And
you must trust me, for I have never pretended. You shall see him if it
is in my power."

She looked at me so piteously that I was near to being unmanned.

"I will trust you," she whispered.

"I have seen him," I said. She started violently, but I laid my hand on
hers, and by some self-mastery that was still in her she was silent. "I
saw him in Louisville a month ago,