ithout knowing? that I could not bear"; and the face, still
looking toward Zoar, lifted up itself from the little City of Refuge,
and looked into the face of Anna Percival. "Poor Abraham!" she said, "he
has suffered, perhaps even more than I. He will hear _you_. Will you
tell him this for me? Tell him all; and when you tell how Mary came to
die, give him this,"--and she handed to me the very package I had twice
journeyed with,--"it will prove to him the truth of what I say."

I hesitated to take that which she proffered.

"You must not disappoint me," she said. "I have spent happy hours since
you went away, in the belief that Providence sent you here to me in the
greatness of my need. I cannot tell Abraham; I could not bear the
joy that will, that must come, when he lays down the burden of his
crime,--for, oh! it will be at the feet of Bernard McKey. You will not
refuse me this?" she pleaded.

Anna Percival, in the silence of that upper room where so much of life
had come to her, sat at Miss Axtell's side, and thought of the dream
that came one Sunday morning to her, sleeping, and out of the memory of
it came tolling down to her heart the words then spoken, and, taught by
them, she answered Miss Axtell's pleading by an "I will."

"Good little comfort-giver!" Miss Lettie said; and she left the package,
containing the precious jewel, in my hands.

Bewildered by the story, filled with sorrow for sufferers passed away
from the great, suffering earth, aching for those that still were in the
void of misery, I arose to go. "It was near to mid-day; Aaron and Sophie
would wait dinner for me," I said to Miss Lottie's pleading for another
hour. Ere I went, the conventionalities that signalled our meeting were
repeated, and, wrapped in the web and woof Miss Axtell had woven, I went
down the staircase and through the wide hall and out of the solemn
old house, wondering if ever again Anna Percival would cross its
entrance-porch. Kino heard the noise of the closing of the door, and
came around the corner to see who it might be. I stayed a moment to say
a few comforting words to the dog. Kino saw me safely outside of the
gate by way of gratitude. I walked on toward the parsonage.

Redleaf seemed very silent, almost deserted. I met none of the villagers
in my homeward walk. "It will be ten minutes yet ere Sophie and Aaron
will, waiting, say, 'I wonder why Anna does not come,'" I thought, as I
drew near, and my fingers held the towe