though she sat in
another rocker close to Joe's, he found it impossible to engage her in a
conversation, try as he might, as she persisted in staring him in the
face. Chagrined at what he thought to be an affront, he suddenly blurted
out: "Mrs. McDonald, is there something about my face that interests
you?" Instead of an answer the lady who had turned a ghastly pallor
handed him a small, paper wrapped parcel. Joe opened the same, and then
after he hastily scanned its contents he speechlessly stared at his
hostess. "Great God in Heaven," exclaimed Joe, breaking the suspense and
unable to better express his amazement at the singular turn affairs had
taken, while with a trembling hand he drew forth from the paper a small
leather purse. "Can it be possible that you, Mrs. McDonald, are 'Babe',
the girl I met fifteen years ago in Chicago, and whose timely assistance
gave me a start upon the narrow path?" "I am the same girl, Joe," she
quietly replied, "and it was for the express purpose of getting a chance
to tell you that I am 'Babe' that I stared so rudely into your face,
because I knew that now or never had come the climax in the lives of
those who had in former days known each other as 'Babe' and 'Dakota
Joe'." Then she took the small leather purse out of Joe's trembling hand
and again wrapped it in the paper, and after striking a match that she
had brought for this purpose, she held the lighted splinter against the
paper, and when the hungry flames leaped up she threw the burning parcel
upon the lawn below, and while they both watched the fire consume the
fateful purse, Mrs. McDonald took Joe's hand into her own and while they
pressed a mute, but none the less oath-bound promise to each other, she
solemnly said: "For the sake of Jim's happy home and our innocent
children, for the sake of the name all of us bear, and the many years I
have lived an honorable life to atone for what occurred before the day
when I last saw you in Chicago, I plead with you, whom, to my horror, I
later discovered to be my own husband's missing brother, to let the past
be forgiven, to be buried in silence and be forever hereafter
forgotten."

[Illustration: decorative element]

CHAPTER XVI.

"All is Well, that Ends Well."

Joe's sojourn at his brother's home had reached the fifth year, and
although he outwardly gave every indication of being perfectly
satisfied, his visit had actually been a continued torture to him, for
his brother