d Thorpe, evenly.
"As I understand, he asked her to marry him and she consented. He was
never released from his promise--did not even ask for it. He slunk
away like a cur. In the sight of God he is bound to her by his own
word still. He should go to her and either fulfil his promise or ask
for release. The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only
atonement he could make."

The midnight train came in and stopped, but neither heard it.

"It would be very difficult," Thorpe was saying, "to retain any shred
of respect for a man like that. It shows your broad charity when you
call him 'friend.' I myself have not so much grace."

Anthony Dexter's breath came painfully. He tightened his fingers on
the arm of the chair and said nothing.

"It is a peculiar coincidence," mused Thorpe, He was thinking aloud
now. "In the old house just beyond Miss Mehitable's, farther up, you
know, a woman has just come to live who seems to have passed through
something like that. It would be strange, would it not, if she were
the one whom your--friend--had wronged?"

"Very," answered Dexter, in a voice the other scarcely heard.

"Perhaps, in this way, we may bring them together again. If the woman
is here, and you can find your friend, we may help him to wash the
stain of cowardice off his soul. Sometimes," cried Thorpe
passionately, "I think there is no sin but shirking. I can excuse a
liar, I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no!"
His voice broke and his wrinkled old hands trembled.

"My--my friend," lied Anthony Dexter, wiping the cold sweat from his
forehead, "lives abroad. I have no way of finding him."

"It is a pity," returned Thorpe. "Think of a man meeting his God like
that! It tempts one to believe in a veritable hell!"

"I think there is a veritable hell," said Dexter, with a laugh which
was not good to hear. "I think, by this time, my friend must believe
in it as well. I remember that he did not, before the--it, I mean,
happened."

Far from feeling relief, Anthony Dexter was scourged anew. A thousand
demons leaped from the silence to mock him; the earth rolled beneath
his feet. The impulse of confession was strong upon him, even in the
face of Thorpe's scorn. He wondered why only one church saw the need
of the confessional, why he could not go, even to Thorpe, and share the
burden that oppressed his guilty soul.

The silence was not to be borne. The walls of the room swa