ch he had just come so that Josephine would be moved
by it, would welcome his interference, and come again to nurse her
uncle's wife. Thus thinking, he had hurried along, but when he met Day
his knight-errantry received a check.

"Your wife ought not to be alone," he said to Day.

"No; that's true!" the farmer replied drearily; "but it isn't everybody
she'll have in the house with her."

"Your son and daughter are too far away to be sent for?"

"Yes"--briefly--"they are in the west."

Caius paused a moment, thinking next to introduce the subject which had
set all his pulses bounding. Because it was momentous to him, he
hesitated, and while he hesitated the other spoke.

"There is one relation I've got, the daughter of a brother of mine who
died up by Gaspe Basin. She's on the Magdalens now. I understood that
you had had dealings with her."

"Yes; I was just about to suggest--I was going to say----"

"I wrote to her. She is coming," said Day.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EVENING AND THE MORNING.

Josephine had come. All night and all the next day she had been by her
aunt's bedside; for Day's wife lay helpless now, and death was very
near. This much Caius knew, having kept himself informed by
communication with the village doctor, and twenty-four hours after
Josephine's arrival he walked over to the Day farm, hoping that, as the
cool of the evening might relax the strain in the sick-room, she would
be able to speak to him for a few minutes.

When he got to the dreary house he met its owner, who had just finished
his evening work. The two men sat on wooden chairs outside the door and
watched the dusk gathering on sea and land, and although they did not
talk much, each felt glad of the other's companionship.

It was nine years since Caius had first made up his mind that Day was a
monster of brutality and wickedness; now he could not think himself back
into the state of mind that could have formed such a judgment When Caius
had condemned Day, he had been a religions youth who thought well of
himself; now his old religious habits and beliefs had dropped off, but
he did not think well of himself or harshly of his neighbour. In those
days he had felt sufficient for life; now all his feeling was summed up
in the desire that was scarcely a hope, that some heavenly power, holy
and strong, would come to his aid.

It is when the whole good of life hangs in a trembling balance that
people become like children, and fee