do it--"

He interrupted, quietly: "I've talked it out with father, and we
understand each other perfectly. You needn't be afraid on his account.
I've taken everything on myself--as I ought to take it."

"Oh, Thor!"

"The only thing that matters about the law is that it shouldn't condemn
any one but me. Now that that danger is out of the way, I can--begin."

She forgot her embarrassment in looking up at him with streaming eyes.
"Begin how, Thor?"

"Begin doing what you told me from the first--begin to start again--to
get it under my feet--to stand on it--to be that much higher up--and not
be"--he fumbled with his cap, his head hung guiltily--"not be ridden by
remorse--any more than--than I can help."

"You'll do it, Thor; you'll do it nobly--"

What she had to say, however, got no further, for the front door was
flung open to allow of Mrs. Willoughby's excited entrance, with Len
puffing heavily behind her.

"Oh, so you're here, Thor!" Bessie cried in the tone of a woman at the
limit of her strength. "Well, I'm glad. You may as well know it first as
last." Breathless, she dropped into one of the hall chairs, endeavoring
to get air by agitating an enormous pillow-muff. "Len's been having--No,
it's too extraordinary!--and I predicted it, didn't I? If you've kept my
letters you've got it down in black and white! Len's been having--It's
just as I said!--it's the shroud and the lighted candle! Len's been
having the strangest, the very _strangest_, talk with Archie."

Lois crept near to her mother, bending down toward her. "But, mother
dear, what about?"

Bessie answered, wildly: "Oh, I don't know what about. I wasn't there. I
was in the drawing-room with Ena. I knew something was going on, from
Ena's manner. What's come over Ena I can't imagine. I've heard of trial
turning human beings into angels, but I never believed it and I can
hardly believe it now. Archie began it himself--I mean with your father.
He beckoned him into the library in the solemnest way. That was after he
had finished his speech and the crowd had stopped cheering. If it _is_
the shroud and the taper--well, all I can say is that he carries them
off just in the way you would expect. No one could do it better, as far
as _that_ goes."

"As far as what goes, mother? I wish you'd tell us."

"It's exactly what I said when I wrote you from London last year. If
you've kept my letters you've got it all down in black and white. He
wants us, and Ena wa