t things right."

Without any reply Shock passed into his mother's room, leaving Brown
alone.

When half an hour had passed, Brown, glancing out of the window, saw
Helen approaching.

"Thank goodness!" he exclaimed, "here she is at last."

He opened the door for her.

"Oh, good morning," she exclaimed in surprise. "I am sure this is very
kind of you."

"Yes, I thought I would help," said Brown in a loud voice. "You see,
Shock was anxious to come, and I thought I would come up with him. He
is in the next room. He will be out in a minute. We were coming up last
night, but could not get away. The Superintendent dropped in, and we
talked till it was too late." Brown kept the stream of his remarks
flowing as if he feared a pause.

Helen laid the bunch of flowers she was carrying in her hand upon the
table.

"Oh, Brown," she exclaimed, "how could you! This is very unkind." She
turned to go.

"Hold on," said Brown in a loud voice. "Shock will be here in a minute.
He'll be sorry to miss you, I am sure."

For a moment Helen stood irresolute, when the door opened and Shock,
pale, but quiet and self-controlled, appeared. He had just been face to
face for the first time with his great grief. The thought that filled
his mind, overwhelming all others, was that his mother had passed
forever beyond the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. Never
till that moment had he taken in the full meaning of the change that
had come to his life.

During the minutes he had spent in his mother's room he had allowed his
mind to go back over the long years so full of fond memory, and then he
had faced the future. Alone henceforth he must go down the long trail.
By his mother's bed he had knelt, and had consecrated himself again to
the life she had taught him to regard as worthy, and with the resolve
in his heart to seek to be the man she would desire him to be and had
expected him to be, he rose from his knees.

When he opened the door the dignity of his great grief and of a lofty
purpose was upon him, and he greeted Helen unembarrassed and with a
serene consciousness of self-mastery.

"I am glad to see you, Miss Fairbanks," he said, taking her hand. "I am
glad that we meet here, for it was here, in this house, that you gave
such loving and tender care to my dear mother. However long I may live,
whatever may come to me, I shall never forget what you did for her
through all the year, and at the last."

His quiet dignity res