t were not for what you said--about me?"
she asked.

"The Lord only knows, but I think she would," replied the poor,
harassed doctor. "She's always been a regular Dorcas in this
neighborhood."

"Dorcas!" cried Agatha, her anger again flaring up. "I should say
Sapphira."

"Oh, now, Susan isn't so bad, when you once know her," urged the doctor.

Agatha got up and went to the window, trailing her traveling rug after
her. "She shall come--I'll bring her. And sometime she shall mend her
words about me--but that can wait. If she will only help to save James
Hambleton's life now! Where does she live?" Suddenly, as she stood at
the window, she saw her opportunity. "There's Little Simon down there
now under the trees; and his buggy must be somewhere near. Will you
stay here, Doctor Thayer, with Mr. Hambleton, while I go to see your
sister?"

"Hadn't I better drive you over to see Susan myself?" feebly suggested
the doctor.

"No, I'll go alone." There was anger, determination, gunpowder in
Agatha's voice.

"But mind you, don't offer her any money," the doctor warned, as he
watched her go down the hall and disappear for an instant in the
bedroom where James Hambleton lay. She came out almost immediately and
without a word descended the wide stairway, opened the dining-room
door, and called softly to Sallie Kingsbury.

Doctor Thayer returned to the sick-room. Ten minutes later he heard
the wheels of Little Simon's buggy rolling rapidly up the road in the
direction of Susan Stoddard's place.

CHAPTER XIV

SUSAN STODDARD'S PRAYER

There was a wide porch, spotlessly scrubbed, along the front of the
house, and two hydrangeas blooming gorgeously in tubs, one on either
side of the walk. The house looked new and modern, shiny with paint
and furnished with all the conveniences offered by the relentless
progress of our day.

Little Simon had informed Agatha, during their short drive, that Deacon
Stoddard had achieved this "residence" shortly before his death; and
his tone implied that it was the pride of the town, its real treasure.
Even to Agatha's absorbed and preoccupied mind it presented a striking
contrast to the old red house, which had received her so graciously
into its spacious comfort. She marveled that anything so fresh and
modish as the house before her could have come into being in the old
town. It was next to a certainty that there was a model laundry with
set tubs beyond the kitchen, and