like the first hearty, living call of
Greatheart through the dungeons of Giant Despair?

"You do not answer me, Stephen?" said his brother. "You will go with
me?"

Yarrow's head was more erect, his eyes less glazed.

"It may be. The chance for me's over in the world, I think. I may as
well serve you. And yet"--

"What?"

"Give me time to think. I want out-of-doors. It's close here. I'll meet
you in the morning."

Soule caught his wife's uneasy glance.

"What is this, Stephen?"

"Nothing," looking dully out into the night.

"Then"--

"There's some you said were dead,"--as if no one were speaking, with the
same dull look. "Or lost: I think they're not dead. If there might be a
chance yet! If I could but see Martha and the little chaps, it would
save me, John Yarrow, no matter what they'd learned to think of me.
They're mine,--my little chaps. She said the boys should never know. She
said that of her own free will."

"Is it likely she could keep her word?" said Soule, sneeringly.

"Why, why, she loved me, John,"--a moist color and smile coming out on
his face. "There's a little thing I minded just now that--Yes, Martha
kept her word."

He tapped with his fingers thoughtfully on the mantel-shelf, the smile
lingering yet on his face. The woman's woollen sewing fell from her
hand, and she spoke for the first time. Her tone had a harsh, metallic
twang in it: Yarrow turned curiously, as he heard it.

"What could they be to you, if you found them? They have forgotten you.
In five years they have not sent you a message."

"No,--I know, Madam."

Even that did not hurt him. His face kindled slowly,--still turned to
the fire, as if it were telling him some old story: looking to her at
last, steadfast and manly, like a man who has healthy common-sense
dominant in his head, and an unselfish love at work in his heart. Such a
one is not far from the kingdom of heaven.

"It seems to me as if there might be a chance--yet. It's a long time.
But Martha loved me, Madam. You don't know--I think I'll go, John. It's
close here, 's I said. I'll meet you at the far bridge by dawn, and let
you know."

"It is your only chance," said Soule, roughly, as he followed him to the
door.

He was a ruined man, if he were balked in this.

"You do not know how the world meets a returned felon, Stephen; you"--

"Let me go," feebly, putting his hand up to his chin in the old fashion.

"I think I know that. I--I've thought of that a