hose sudden disappearance had been so mysterious. Hugh never knew how
he controlled himself from leaping into that walk and compelling the
bold wretch to tell if he knew aught of the base deserter, Willie
Hastings' father. He did, indeed, take one forward step while his fist
clinched involuntarily, but the next moment fell powerless at his side
as a low wail of pain reached his ear and he turned in time to save his
fainting mother from falling to the floor.

She, too, had seen the ropemaker, glancing at him twice ere sure she saw
aright, and then, as if a corpse buried years ago had arisen to her
view, the blood curdled about her heart which after one mighty throe lay
heavy and still as lead. He was not dead; that paragraph in the paper
telling her so was false; he did not die, such as he could not die; he
was alive--alive--a convict within those prison walls; a living,
breathing man with that same look she remembered so well, shuddering as
she remembered it, 'Lina's father and her own husband!

"It was the heat, or the smell, or the parting with Adah, or something,"
she said, when she came back to consciousness, eagerly scanning Hugh's
face to see if he knew too, and then glancing timidly around as if in
quest of the phantom which had so affected her.

"Let's go home, I'm sorry I came to Frankfort," she whispered, while her
teeth chattered and her eyes wore a look of terror for which Hugh could
not account.

He never thought of associating her illness with the man who had so
affected himself. It was overexertion, he said. His mother could not
bear much, and with all the tenderness of an affectionate son he wrapped
her shawl about her and led her gantry from the spot which held for her
so great a terror. It was not physical fear; she had never been afraid
of bodily harm, even when fully in his power. It was rather the olden
horror stealing back upon her, the pain which comes from the slow
grinding out of one's entire will and spirit. She had forgotten the
feeling, it was so long since it had been experienced, but one sight of
him brought it back, and all the way from Frankfort to Spring Bank she
lay upon Hugh's shoulder quiet, but sick and faint, with a shrinking
from what the future might possibly have in store for her.

In this state of mind she reached Spring Bank, where by some strange
coincidence, if coincidence it can be called, old Densie Densmore was
the first to greet her, asking, with much concern, what wa