's face showed that he, too, did not
understand the constant friend's absence in the hour of great joy.

"Is it that she cannot forgive us?" he muttered.

But the lover knew better than that.

"To be sure I must go to her," he said. "It would not be fitting that
she should come to me. I would have been earlier astir than Bawn; I
would have been waiting for her doors to open, only that--there is
something that must be done first."

"I don't think there is anything you need wait for, Uncle Luke," I said,
handing the sealed packet to my grandfather. "I met Richard Dawson on
my way back. He was waiting for some one to carry his message. He told
me that my grandfather was to examine these papers, to see that
everything was there, and afterwards to burn them."

My grandfather seized the papers eagerly. His hand shook so that he
could not open them, and he fumbled for his glasses.

"You have a son now, sir," said Uncle Luke, putting an arm about his
shoulder.

They went away to the window to examine the papers, and for some time
there was silence in the room. At last my uncle gathered the lot
together and going to the fire placed them on top of it. They caught;
and in a few seconds there was no trace of them.

"How little or how much of this Garret Dawson believed to be true I
leave to his Maker," he said, turning about as the last ash went up the
chimney. "For his son's sake I shall not try to punish him. I believe
some of these letters were forged. I will show you one of these days
letters from the girl I saved from Jasper Tuite. For that is how it was.
She is an honoured wife and mother of children. It is one of the few
things in my life of which I may be proud."

Afterwards he went away and we knew that he was gone to Castle Clody.

There was so much to be done and I had to do it all; Lord and Lady St.
Leger could only be silent together, gazing into each other's eyes,
praising God humbly for their son given back from the dead. I left them
in the sunshine on the terrace creeping up and down, and as I looked
back before I entered the house by the French windows of the
morning-room, I recognized all at once that my grandmother had put off
her black, and was wearing grey, with some of her old lace trimming it.
It was a tabinet which I must have seen in my childhood. The memory of
it was so remote that I felt as if I must have read about it; but I had
an exact memory of the way it was made, which was billowing about