bt that the look of solemn wonder flitted suddenly from
her face, leaving it haggard and fierce, and that like a stab with a
dagger she drove the splintering pen into the desk as into the breast of
an enemy. So much is known, for there is little done that can be
screened from mortal ken.

As for her thoughts--here no man can tell, for she held her words behind
grim set lips. But the guess cannot be far amiss that when old Molly
discovered she was destined to die with never a word of warning or
counsel to Dan she broke into bitter revolt. Not a word of all the
wisdom she had stored with this one purpose could be written or spoken
to him--and it never was. Far be it from me to blackguard an old lady
fallen in with disappointment but it is a fact proved by witness that
her trembling hands upraised and her lips, always so faintly smiling,
curled as with a curse--and whether it was launched at the fiend or
heaven itself is not for me to say who have no proof that her voice was
heard above the howling of the blizzard.

But this I know, that on the instant she hears a summons that breaks
the spell of anger as no threat of purgatory would have done. A moment
she hesitates, the old hands sink unclenching, the fierceness fades from
her eyes, and once again with wondering uplifted look Molly Regan turns
to the things beyond, which no one else may see.

At the wide-open welcoming door she stands, peering amid the squall of
snow; and there in the center of the blur of light stands Tim the
messenger, in aftertime the ruin of Dan Regan's fortunes.

The boy's hands are clasped as those of a frozen corpse, the wind
whistles in his rags, but he glowers at her with narrowed brows and a
gleam of teeth. Here he is, come to demand retribution for her rebellion
against the will of God, and since Molly cannot live to pay it is
ordained that she shall give instead into Tim Cannon's hands the means
of trampling under Dan Regan and his fortune. 'T is little we know.

"Come," says Molly, "come in to the fire, and the hot coffee; you are
frozen with the wind and snow. Glory be, that I am still here to make
comfortable for the waif on my doorstep."

The wisp of old woman in mourning dress, with blown white hair and
out-stretched hand; the crackling hearth, and coziness of the room
beyond--these are hostess and haven enough to any waif of winter
tempest; and Molly knowing it to be so steps aside for him, laughing
with eagerness to see him at th