discovered, did more than carry on the amazing act of communion
and redemption. It clinched it. It was the seal on the bond.

Early the next morning she went over to the Farm. The blinds were up;
the doors and windows were flung open. Milly met her at the garden gate.
She stopped her and walked a little way with her across the field. "It's
worked," she said. "It's worked after all, like magic."

For a moment Agatha wondered whether Milly had guessed anything; whether
she divined the Secret and had brought him there for that, and had
refused to acknowledge it before she knew.

"What has?" she asked.

"The plan. The place. He slept last night. Ten hours straight on end. I
know, for I stayed awake and watched him. And this morning--oh, my dear,
if you could see him! He's all right. He's all right."

"And you think," said Agatha, "it's the place?"

Milly knew nothing, guessed, divined nothing.

"Why, what else can it be?" she said.

"What does _he_ think?"

"He doesn't think. He can't account for it. He says himself it's
miraculous."

"Perhaps," said Agatha, "it is."

They were silent a moment over the wonder of it.

"I can't get over it," said Milly, presently. "It's so odd that it
should make all that difference. I could understand it if it had worked
that way at first. But it didn't. Think of him yesterday. And yet--if it
isn't the place, what is it? What is it?"

Agatha did not answer. She wasn't going to tell Milly what it was. If
she did Milly wouldn't believe her, and Milly's unbelief might work
against it. It might prove, for all she knew, an inimical, disastrous
power.

"Come and see for yourself." Milly spoke as if it had been Agatha who
doubted.

They turned again towards the house. Powell had come out and was in the
garden, leaning on the gate. They could see how right he was by the mere
fact of his being there, presenting himself like that to the vivid
light.

He opened the gate for them, raising his hat and smiling as they came.
His face witnessed to the wonder worked on him. The colour showed clean,
purged of his taint. His eyes were candid and pure under brows smoothed
by sleep.

As they went in he stood for a moment in the open doorway and looked at
the view, admiring the river and the green valley, and the bare upland
fields under the wood. He had always had (it was part of his rare
quality) a prodigious capacity for admiration.

"My God," he said, "how beautiful the world is!"

H