nk you. I'm not sick."

Soule turned away. He could not meet the look on the pinched
convict-face,--the soul of the man crying out for God or his brother,
something to help. There was a silence for a few moments.

"You will come with me, Stephen," quietly: then, after a pause, "It is
for life. There is but little time left to decide."

Was there no help? Had the true God no messenger? The winter-wind
blowing through the window filled with fine frost wet his face, lifted
the smothering off his lungs. His eyes grew clear, as his full sense
returned after a while: seeing only at first, it so happened, the fire
in its square frame; and thinking only of that, as the mind always
drowsily absorbs the nearest trifle after a spasm of pain. A bed of pale
red coals now, furred over with white and pearl-colored ashes. It was a
long time since he had seen any open fire,--years, he believed. Where
was it that there had been a fire just like that, with the ashes like
moss over the heat,--and on a night in winter, too, the wind rattling
the panes? Where was it? While Soule stood waiting for his answer, his
mind was drifting back, like that of a man in his dotage, through its
dull, muddy thoughts, after that one silly memory. He struck on it at
last. A year or two after he was married. In the bedroom. Martha was
sitting by the fire, with the old yellow dog beside her: she was trying
to ride the baby on his neck,--he was the clumsiest brute! He came in
and stopped to see the fun; he noticed the fire then, how cozy and warm
it all was: outside it was hailing, a gust shaking the house. He had
been doing a bit of carpentering,--he did like to go back to the old
trade! This was a wicker chair for the baby,--he had made it in the
stable for a surprise: the girl always liked surprises and such
nonsense. He put it down with a flourish, and he remembered how she
laughed, and Ready growled, and how he and she both got on their knees
to seat the youngster in, and tie him with his bandanna handkerchief. So
silly that all was! When they were on the floor there, and had Master
Jem fastened in, be remembered how she suddenly turned, and put her arms
about his neck, as shyly as when they were first married, and kissed
him. "Only God knows how good you are to me, Stephen," she said. There
were tears in her eyes.--Yarrow passed his hand over his forehead. Did
ever a thought come into your mind like a fresh, clean air into a
stove-heated, foul room? or