t's summer--summer, d'ye hear?
And it's _mine_--and I'm going to have it, before I'm dead like my
mother died with her body still living! You're no more my father than
that dead tree the sun can't ever warm again!--It's for good--I said it
would be for good--and it is!"

We took her, sobbing dryly, between us, up the road.

That night in our house Lisbeth was married to Jim. A deep serenity
seemed to hang about her as though for the moment the past had been shut
away from her by a mist. As for Jim, there was a wonder in his eyes, not
unlike that I had seen when he came upon an old Lippo Lippi, and a great
comprehending reverence. There were tears at the back of my eyes--then
the beauty of the scene drove all else back before it.

* * * * *

There is one more episode in the life of Con Darton and Lisbeth. Knowing
him, it would be incredible that there should not be. It happened some
five years later and I was concerned in it from the moment that I was
summoned unexpectedly to Mr. Lin Darton's office in the city, a dingy
though not unprosperous menage located in the cheaper part of the down
town district. I found him sitting amid an untidy litter of papers at
the table, talking through the telephone to some one who later
developed to be Miss Etta; and I had at once a feeling of suffocation
and closeness, due not alone, I believe, to the barred windows and the
steaming radiator. The family resemblance that Mr. Lin Darton bore to
Old Con threw into relief the former's honesty, and made more bearable
his heavy sentimentalism, upon which Con had played as surely as on a
bagpipe, sounding its narrow range with insistent evenness of response.

"I want to talk to you about Con," he said gravely, as soon as the
receiver had been hung up, "and--Lisbeth." He uttered his niece's name
as though it were a thing of which he could not but be ashamed.

I said nothing to this, and waited.

"As you are still in touch with her; and, as the situation is probably
already partly known to you, I thought you might be able--willing--" He
hesitated, paused; and a grieved look came into his eyes that was quite
genuine. I realized the fact coldly.

"Whatever I can do," I assured him, "I shall be glad to."

"None of us," he continued, "have seen Lisbeth since that terrible night
four years ago, when she turned Con away from her house."

I hesitated for a moment and then said: "It was three o'clock in the
morn