aid, speaking naturally, without a lisp
and with a broader provincial accent than usual--speaking, too, with
ill-concealed emotion--"some day you will need a friend. When that day
dawns come to me. Promise me this. I know your life and what lies in
the past. Do not start--no, nor cover your face, my child. I am safe,
and so are you. You must feel this, that I may be of use to you when
you want me; for you will want me some day, and I shall be the only
one who can save you."

"What do you know?" asked Leam, making one supreme effort over herself
and confronting him.

"Everything," said Mr. Gryce solemnly.

"Then I am lost," she answered in a low voice.

"You are saved," he said with tenderness. "Do not be afraid of me:
rather thank God that He has given you into my care. You have
two friends now instead of one, and the latest the most powerful.
Good-bye, my poor misguided and bewildered child. A greater than you
or I once said, 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, because
she loved much.' Cannot you take that to yourself? If not now, nor yet
when remorse is your chief thought, you will later. Till then, trust
and hope."

He turned to leave her, tears in his eyes.

"Stay!" cried Leam, but he only shook his head and waved his hand.

"Not now," he said, smiling as he broke through the wood, leaving her
with the impression that a chasm had suddenly opened at her feet, into
which sooner or later she must fall.

She stood a few moments where the old philosopher and born detective
had left her, then went up the path to the hiding-place where she
had so often before found the healing to be had from Nature and
solitude--to the old dark-spreading yew, which somehow seemed to be
more her friend than any human being could be or was--more than even
Alick in his devotedness or Mr. Gryce in his protection. And there,
sitting on the lowest branch, and sitting so still that the birds
came close to her and were not afraid, she dreamed herself back to the
desolate days of her innocent youth--those days which were before she
had committed a crime or gained friend or lover.

She had been miserable enough then--one alone in the world and one
against the world. But how gladly she would have exchanged her present
state for the worst of her days then! How she wished that she had died
with mamma, or, living, had not taken it as her duty to avenge those
wrongs which the saints allowed! Oh, what a tangled dream it all was!
she s