bout your mother. She had just learned it, she said,
and she did not know that you knew. And I never let her know that I
knew, since I supposed you had some reason for not wanting her to know."

"I did," said Chad, sadly, but he did not tell his reason. Melissa
would never have learned the one thing from him as Margaret would not
learn the other now.

"She came on foot to ask about you and to defend you against--against
me. And she went back afoot. She disappeared one morning before we got
up. She seemed very ill, too, and unhappy. She was coughing all the
time, and I wakened one night and heard her sobbing, but she was so
sullen and fierce that I was almost afraid of her. Next morning she was
gone. I would have taken her part of the way home myself. Poor thing!"
Chad was walking with his head bent.

"I'm going down to see her before I go West."

"You are going West--to live?"

"Yes."

They had reached the yard gate now which creaked on rusty hinges when
Chad pulled it open. The yard was running wild with plantains, the
gravelled walk was overgrown, the house was closed, shuttered, and
dark, and the spirit of desolation overhung the place, but the ruin
looked gentle in the moonlight. Chad's throat hurt and his eyes filled.

"I want to show you now the last thing he did," said Margaret. Her eyes
lighted with tenderness and she led him wondering down through the
tangled garden to the old family graveyard.

"Climb over and look, Chad," she said, leaning over the wall.

There was the grave of the Major's father which he knew so well; next
that, to the left, was a new mound under which rested the Major
himself. To the right was a stone marked "Chadwick Buford, born in
Virginia, 1750, died in Kentucky"--and then another stone marked simply:

Mary Buford.

"He had both brought from the mountains," said Margaret, softly, "and
the last time he was out of the house was when he leaned here to watch
them buried there. He said there would always be a place next your
mother for you. 'Tell the boy that,' he said." Chad put his arms around
the tombstone and then sank on one knee by his mother's grave. It was
strewn with withered violets.

"You--YOU did that, Margaret?"

Margaret nodded through her tears.

. . . . .

The wonder of it! They stood very still, looking for a long time into
each other's eyes. Could the veil of the hereafter have been lifted for
them at that moment and they have seen themselves walking t