, if he would destroy Sonia's schemes against Aunt Lois, but
felt sure that they would be unprepared to seize it, even if they
dreamed it at hand. He had a plan which might accomplish his object
without endangering his position; and one night he slipped away from the
city on a train for Boston, got off at a lonely station, and plunged
into the darkness without a word for a sleepy station-master.

At dawn after two hours' walk he passed the pond which had once seemed
to him the door of escape. Poor old friend! Its gray face lay under the
morning sky like the face of a dead saint, luminous in its outlines, as
if the glory of heaven shone through; still, oh, so still, and deep as
if it mirrored immensity. Little complaining murmurs, like the
whimperings of a sleepy child, rose up from the reeds, sweeter than any
songs. He paused an instant to compare the _then_ and _now_, but fled
with a groan as the old sorrow, the old madness, suddenly seized him
with the powerful grip of that horrid time. In fact, every step of the
way to Martha's house was torture. He saw that for him there were other
dangers than Sonia and her detectives, in leaving the refuge which God
had provided for him. Oh, never could he be too grateful for the
blessing, never could he love enough the holy man who had suggested it,
never could he repay the dear souls whose love had made it beautiful.
They rose up before him as he hurried down the road, the lovable,
humorous, rollicking, faulty clan; and he would not have exchanged them
for the glories of a court, for the joys of Arcady.

The sun and he found Martha busy with household duties. She did not know
him and he said not a word to enlighten her; he was a messenger from a
friend who asked of her a service, the carrying of a letter to a
certain woman in Boston; and no one should see her deliver the letter,
or learn her name, or know her coming and going; for her friend, in
hiding, and pursued, must not be discovered. Then she knew that he came
from Horace, and shed tears that he lived well and happy, but could not
believe, when he had made himself known, that this was the same man of a
year before. They spent a happy day together in perfecting the details
of her visit to Aunt Lois, which had to be accomplished with great care
and secrecy. There was to be no correspondence between them. In two
weeks he would come again to hear a report of her success or failure. If
she were not at home, he would come two we