good, aren't you, Tom?"

His look was so sober that it was well-nigh sullen. "I'm going to say
what I've got to say, and then hold my tongue if I have to bite it," he
answered. "Good-by; and--and a Merry Christmas, and--thank you."

He shut the carriage door and gave Scipio the word to go on; and
afterward stood at the gate looking after the great lumbering ark on
wheels until it turned in at the Deer Trace driveway and was lost in the
winding avenue of thick-set evergreens. Then he let himself in at the
home gate, walking leaden-footed toward the ornate house at the top of
the knoll and wishing the distance were ten times as great.

When he reached the house there was an ominous air of quiet about it,
and a horse and buggy, with a black boy holding the reins, stood before
the door. Tom's heart came into his mouth. The turnout was Doctor
Williams's.

"Who's sick?" he asked of the boy who was holding the doctor's horse,
and his tongue was thick with a nameless fear.

The black boy did not know; and Tom crept up the steps and let himself
in as one enters a house of mourning, breaking down completely when he
saw his father sitting bowed on the hall seat.

"You, Buddy?--I'm mighty glad," said the man; and when he held out his
arms the boy flung himself on his knees beside the seat and buried his
face in the cushions.

"Is she--is she going to die?" he asked; when the dreadful words could
be found and spoken.

"We're hoping for the best, Buddy, son. It's some sort of a stroke, the
doctor says; it took her yesterday morning, and she hasn't been herself
since. Did somebody telegraph to you?"

Tom rocked his head on the cushion. How could he add to the blackness of
darkness by telling his miserable story of disgrace? Yet it had to be
done, and surely no hapless penitent in the confessional ever emptied
his soul with more heartfelt contrition or more bitter remorse.

Caleb Gordon listened, with what inward condemnings one could only guess
from his silence. It was terrible! If his father would strike him, curse
him, drive him out of the house, it would be easier to bear than the
stifling silence. But when the words came finally they were as balm
poured into an angry wound.

"There, there, Buddy; don't take on so. You're might' nigh a man, now,
and the sun's still risin' and settin' just the same as it did before
you tripped up and fell down. And it'll go on risin' and settin', too,
long after you and me and all of u