h couch in the
sunny kitchen, and Nathaniel was bathing her face with cool water.

"The child?" faltered the mother, looking pleadingly around. And then
Nathaniel showed mercy, the only mercy in his power.

"She's gone to McAlpin. They leave for the States to-night. It's you and
I alone now to the end of the way."

"Husband, husband! We've been hard on her; we've driven her to----"

"Hush, you! foolish one. Would you defy God? Each one of us walks the
path our feet are set upon. 'Twas fore-ordained and her being ours makes
no difference. Every light woman was--some one's, God knows--and with Him
there be no respecter of persons."

"Oh! but if you had only been kinder. It seems as if we haven't gone
beside her on her path. Couldn't we have drawn her from it--if we had
expected different of her? Oh! I shall miss her sore. The loneliness, the
loneliness with her out of the days and the long nights."

Theodora was weeping again desolately.

"Be grateful, woman, that worse has not come to us."

Now that the deathlike faint was over, Nathaniel's softening was passing.

"And she went from our door hungry, the poor dear! We wouldn't have
treated a beggar so."

"Had she come as a suppliant, all would have been different."

Then Theodora sat up, and a kind of frenzy drove her to speak.

"She had something to tell! You did not let her say her say. _What_ kept
her away all night? Jerry-Jo McAlpin has the devil blood in him when he's
up to--to pranks. Suppose----" A sort of horror shook the thin, livid
face. Nathaniel, in spite of himself, had a bad moment; then his hard
common sense steadied him.

"Would she go to him, if what you fear was true?"

"Has she gone to him?"

"Where else then--and all Kenmore not know? Wait till to-morrow before
you leap to the doing of that which you may regret. Calm yourself and
wait until to-morrow."

And Theodora waited--many, many morrows.

CHAPTER XI

"And you see, Master Farwell, I cannot go back to my father's house."

It was after nine of the evening of the day Priscilla Glenn had left
home. She had reached Farwell's shack without being seen. By keeping to
the woods and watching her opportunity, she had gained the rear of the
schoolhouse, entered while Farwell was absent, and breathed freely only
after securing the door.

The master had returned an hour later and, the gossip of the Green
ringing in his ears, confronted the white, silent girl with no questions,
b