his usual manner,
Hamlin went on.

"I know it would be lonely here, and a man like you ought to have a
wife for--" he slightly lifted his eyebrows--"for example's sake. I
heard there was a young lady in the case over there in Tasajara--but
the old people didn't see it on account of your position. They'd jump
at it now. Eh? No? Well," continued Jack, with a decent attempt to
conceal his cynical relief, "perhaps those boys have been so eager to
find out all they could do for you that they've been sold. Perhaps
we're making equal fools of ourselves now in asking you to stay. But
don't say no just yet--take a day or a week to think of it."

Gideon still pale but calm, cast his eyes around the elegant room, at
the magic organ, then upon the slight handsome figure before him. "I
WILL think of it," he said, in a low voice, as he pressed Jack's hand.
"And if I accept you will find me here to-morrow afternoon at this
time; if I do not you will know that I keep with me wherever I go the
kindness, the brotherly love, and the grace of God that prompts your
offer, even though He withholds from me His blessed light, which alone
can make me know His wish." He stopped and hesitated. "If you love
me, Jack, don't ask me to stay, but pray for that light which alone can
guide my feet back to you, or take me hence for ever."

He once more tightly pressed the hand of the embarrassed man before him
and was gone.

Passers-by on the Martinez road that night remembered a mute and
ghostly rider who, heedless of hail or greeting, moved by them as in a
trance or vision. But the Widow Hiler the next morning, coming from
the spring, found no abstraction or preoccupation in the soft eyes of
Gideon Deane as he suddenly appeared before her, and gently relieved
her of the bucket she was carrying. A quick flash of color over her
brow and cheek-bone, as if a hot iron had passed there, and a certain
astringent coyness, would have embarrassed any other man than him.

"Sho, it's YOU. I reck'ned I'd seen the last of you."

"You don't mean that, Sister Hiler?" said Gideon, with a gentle smile.

"Well, what with the report of your goin's on at Martinez and improvin'
the occasion of that sinner's death, and leadin' a revival, I reckoned
you'ld hev forgotten low folks at Tasajara. And if your goin' to be
settled there in a new church, with new hearers, I reckon you'll want
new surroundings too. Things change and young folks change with 'em."