came over to see me."

"Had he never seen you before?"

"Of course, when I was little--and later he took me to school in
Applegate. I was to stay there until I was twenty-one you know, but I
ran away the second year because grandfather fell ill with pneumonia and
there was no one to look after him. You remember that, don't you?"

"Yes, I remember. I picked you up on the road and brought you home in my
gig. There was a heavy snow storm."

"It seems that I was meant to be educated as a lady. Old Mr. Jonathan
left a letter about it."

"He did?--damn him! Why didn't he save himself the trouble by acting
decently in the beginning?"

"That was because of Mrs. Gay--he had promised her, when he thought she
was dying, some dreadful thing. And after that he was afraid--afraid of
her all his life. Isn't it terrible that such a saintly person should
have caused so much sin?"

"But what was she to him that he should have been such a coward about
her?"

"Oh, he loved her more than anything on earth--for he loved my mother
only a little while. When Mrs. Gay first came to live with him, she was
so beautiful and so delicate, that she looked as if a wind would
blow her away--so soft that she could smother a person like a mass of
feathers. He felt after that that he had entangled himself, and it was
only at the last when he was dying that he had any remorse. With all
his wickedness there was a terrible kind of religion in him--like a rock
that is buried under the earth--and he wanted to save his soul alive
before he passed on to judgment. As if _that_ did any good--or he
_could_ make amends either to me or to God."

"I rather hope he was as unsuccessful in the last case as in the first.
But, tell me, Molly, how does it affect you?"

"Not at all--not at all--if he has left me money, I shall not touch it.
He wasn't thinking of mother, but of his own soul at the end, and can
you tell me that God would wipe out all his dreadful past just because
of one instant's fear?"

Her passion, so unlike the meekness of Janet Merryweather, made him look
at her wonderingly, and yet with a sympathy that kept him dumb. It took
the spirit of a Gay to match a Gay, he thought, not without bitterness.

"But why does Mr. Chamberlayne come to you now?" he asked, when he had
regained his voice.

"It is Mrs. Gay--it has always been Mrs. Gay ever since Mr. Jonathan
first saw her. She smothered his soul with her softness, and wound him
about her lit