the courage, that's all there is to say about
it." And here John buried his head in his hands.

A very queer thing happened to Louisa Banks at this moment. A
half-second before she would have murmured:

"This rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I!"

when all at once, and without warning, a strange something occurred in
the organ which she had always regarded and her opinion had never yet
been questioned as a good, tough, love-tight heart. First there was a
flutter and a tremor running all along her spine; then her eyes filled;
then a lump rose in her throat and choked her; then words trembled on
her tongue and refused to be uttered; then something like a bird--could
it have been the highly respectable good-as-new heart?--throbbed under
her black silk Sunday waist; then she grew like wax from the crown
of her head to the soles of her feet; then in a twinkling, and so
unconsciously as to be unashamed of it, she became a sister.

You have seen a gray November morning melt into an Indian summer noon?
Louisa Banks was like that, when, at the sight of a man in sore trouble,
sympathy was born in her to soften the rockiness of her original makeup.

"There, there, John, don't be so downhearted," she stammered, drawing
her chair closer and putting her hand on his shoulder. "We'll bring it
round right, you see if we don't. You've done the most yourself already,
for I'm proud of the way you've acted, stiffening right up like an
honest man and showing you've got some good sensible Hathaway stuff in
you, after all, and ain't ashamed to turn your back on your evil ways.
Susanna ain't one to refuse forgiveness."

"She forgave for a long time, but she refused at last. Why should she
change now?" John asked.

"You remember she has n't heard a single word from you, nor about you,
in that out-of-the-way place where she's been living," said Louisa,
consolingly. "She thinks you're the same as you were, or worse, maybe.
Perhaps she's waiting for you to make some sign through me, for she
don't know that you care anything about her, or are pining to have her
back."

"Such a woman as Susanna must know better than that!" cried John. "She
ought to know that when a man got used to living with anybody like her,
he could never endure any other kind."

"How should she know all that? Jack's been writing to her and telling
her the news for the last few weeks, though I have n't said a word about
you because I did n't know how long