ll tell you what I'll do, Silas," said his friend suddenly,
straightening up on his staff. "I'll tell you what I'll do with you,
Silas. Even if it _is_ goin' to be cool before long--I'll just take you
over to the drug store and buy you a drink of ice-cream sody at the
fountain!"

"Time comes," he continued after a time, "when a fellow's been feelin'
kind of stirred up, some way--when he feels just like he didn't care a
hang for no expense. Ain't that the truth?"

CHAPTER XXV

BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN

The blessed change in the weather came on apace. The sultry air softened
and became more life-giving. Folk moved into the open, sat out upon the
steps of the front galleries, rich and poor alike, willing to take the
air. There was an unusual silence, an unwonted scarcity of callings back
and forth across the fences. The people of the town did not care to
revive the memories of the last two days.

But the narrow little porch in front of the millinery shop on Mulberry
Street held no occupant. There was a light within, but the blinds were
close drawn. None who passed could hear any sound.

Aurora Lane had sat for hours, almost motionless, at the side of the
table where customarily she worked. She made no pretense to read in her
Bible now. Her little white bed was unrumpled by any pressure of her
body bowed at its side in prayer, although it was her hour now for these
things.

She was trying to think. Her mind had been crushed. She sat dazed. It
seemed to her an age since these women--these strangely kind-hearted,
newly charitable women--had been here. Or, had she only dreamed that
they were here? Had it been a passage of angels she herself had
witnessed here?

She had told Miss Julia not to let Don come to see her just yet. So,
though she had heard the great news of his release, she had not met him.
"I'll have to think, Julia," she said. "I don't know what I'll do. I
must be alone."

The window of her shop was still unmended. The red hat which had been so
long, in one redressing or another, the sign of her wares, now was bent
and broken beyond all possibility of restoration. The walls were bare,
the furniture was broken. It was wreck and ruin that lay about her, as
dully she still was conscious.

Twenty years of it--and this was the climax! What place was there left
for her in all the world? As she sat, hour after hour, alone, Aurora
Lane was thinking of the dark pool under the bridge, of how cool and
com