life he had never known such bitterness of
soul as the realization brought home to him.

"What is the good of you if you can't help me?" moaned the dying woman.
"Pray--pray--pray!" she shrilled suddenly.

Mr. Leonard dropped on his knees by the bed. He did not know what
to say. No prayer that he had ever prayed was of use here. The old,
beautiful formulas, which had soothed and helped the passing of many a
soul, were naught save idle, empty words to Naomi Clark. In his anguish
of mind Stephen Leonard gasped out the briefest and sincerest prayer his
lips had ever uttered.

"O, God, our Father! Help this woman. Speak to her in a tongue which she
can understand."

A beautiful, white face appeared for a moment in the light that streamed
out of the doorway into the darkness of the night. No one noticed it,
and it quickly drew back into the shadow. Suddenly, Naomi fell back on
her pillow, her lips blue, her face horribly pinched, her eyes rolled up
in her head. Maggie started up, pushed Mr. Leonard aside, and proceeded
to administer some remedy with surprising skill and deftness. Mr.
Leonard, believing Naomi to be dying, went to the door, feeling sick and
bruised in soul.

Presently a figure stole out into the light.

"Felix, is that you?" said Mr. Leonard in a startled tone.

"Yes, sir." Felix came up to the stone step. "Janet got frightened what
you might fall on that rough road after dark, so she made me come after
you with a lantern. I've been waiting behind the point, but at last I
thought I'd better come and see if you would be staying much longer. If
you will be, I'll go back to Janet and leave the lantern here with you."
"Yes, that will be the best thing to do. I may not be ready to go home
for some time yet," said Mr. Leonard, thinking that the death-bed of sin
behind him was no sight for Felix's young eyes.

"Is that your grandson you're talking to?" Naomi spoke clearly and
strongly. The spasm had passed. "If it is, bring him in. I want to see
him."

Reluctantly, Mr. Leonard signed Felix to enter. The boy stood by Naomi's
bed and looked down at her with sympathetic eyes. But at first she did
not look at him--she looked past him at the minister.

"I might have died in that spell," she said, with sullen reproach in her
voice, "and if I had, I'd been in hell now. You can't help me--I'm done
with you. There ain't any hope for me, and I know it now."

She turned to Felix.

"Take down that fiddle on th