son and kissed him--for to her, as to Westville, he was
the same man as five years before, and to him she had given not only
the love a mother gives her only son, but the love she had formerly
borne her husband who, during his last years, had been to her a bitter
grief. Blake returned the kiss with no less feeling. His love of his
mother was the talk of Westville; it was the one noble sentiment which
he still allowed to sway him with all its original sincerity and
might.

They had tea out upon the porch, with its view of the river twinkling
down the easy hill between the trees. Mrs. Blake, seeing how agitated
Elsie was, and under what a strain was Doctor Sherman, and guessing
the cause, deftly guided the conversation away from to-morrow's trial.
She led the talk around to the lecture room which was being added to
Doctor Sherman's church--a topic of high interest to them all, for she
was a member of the church, Blake was chairman of the building
committee, and Doctor Sherman was treasurer of the committee and
active director of the work. This manoeuvre had but moderate
success. Blake carried his part of the conversation well enough, and
Elsie talked with a feverish interest which was too great a drain upon
her meagre strength. But the stress of Doctor Sherman, which he strove
to conceal, seemed to grow greater rather than decrease.

Presently Blake excused himself and Doctor Sherman, and the two men
strolled down a winding, root-obstructed path toward the river. As
they left the cabin behind them, Blake's manner became cold and hard,
as in his office, and Doctor Sherman's agitation, which he had with
such an effort kept in hand, began to escape his control. Once he
stumbled over the twisted root which a beech thrust across their path
and would have fallen had not Blake put out a swift hand and caught
him. Yet at this neither uttered a word, and in silence they
continued walking on till they reached a retired spot upon the river's
bank.

Here Doctor Sherman sank to a seat upon a mossy, rotting log. Blake,
erect, but leaning lightly against the scaling, mottled body of a
giant sycamore, at first gave no heed to his companion. He gazed
straight ahead down the river, emaciated by the drought till the
bowlders of its bottom protruded through the surface like so many
bones--with the ranks of austere sycamores keeping their stately watch
on either bank--with the sun, blood red in the September haze,
suspended above the riv