ly succinct speech. "My
home was in Marmion, but I attended school in your village. I sang in
your church for a little while."

His face lighted up. "I remember you--a pale, serious little girl. Did
you know my son there?"

She looked away for a moment. "I sang for him--when he was in jail," she
replied. "I belonged to the Rescue Band."

A shadow fell again upon the father's face.

"I did not know it," he said, feeling something mysterious
here--something which lay outside his grasp. "Have you seen him
meanwhile? I suppose you must have done so."

"Once, in Marmion, some four years ago."

"Ah! Now I understand his visit to Marmion," said Mr. Excell, with a
sudden smile. "I thought he came to see Jack and me. He really came to
see you. Am I right?"

"Yes," she replied. "He wanted me to go back with him, but
I--I--couldn't do so."

"I know--I know," he replied hastily. "He had no right to ask it of
you--poor boy."

"It seems now as though I had no right to refuse. I might have helped
him. If he should die now there would be an incurable ache here"--she
lifted her hand to her throat; "so long as I lived I should not forgive
myself."

CHAPTER XXI

CONCLUSION

As he crawled slowly back to life and clear thinking, Harold's wild
heart was filled with a peace and serenity of emotion such as it had not
known since childhood. He was like a boy in a careless dream,
forecasting nothing, remembering nothing, content to see Mary come and
go about the room, glad of the sound of her skirts, thrilling under the
gentle pressure of her hand.

She, on her part, could not realize any part of his dark fame as she
smiled down into his big yellow-brown eyes which were as pathetic and
wistful as those of a gentle animal.

Mrs. Raimon spoke of this. "I saw 'Black Mose' as he stood in the
streets of Wagon Wheel, the most famous dead-shot in the State. I can't
realize that this is the same man. He's gentle as a babe now; he was as
terrible and as beautiful as a tiger then."

Reynolds sent fifty dollars with an apology for the delay and Mr. Excell
offered his slender purse, but Mrs. Raimon said: "I'll attend to this
matter of expense. Let me do that little for him--please!" And he gave
way, knowing her great wealth.

But all these things began at last to trouble the proud heart of the
sick man, and as he grew stronger his hours of quiet joy began to be
broken by disquieting calculations of his indebtedness to Mrs. Rai