there are some hours of human experience so intense with suffering that they return, again and again, living themselves over in the memory, arising in the small hours of the night—haunting specters of pain, meeting us unexpectedly in an unguarded moment of solitude to open and reopen the wounds they have left, following us on through the years with a recurring vindictiveness of pain almost as keen as when it was first inflicted. joy, happiness, exaltation of spirit, return only in new guises; they, too, make their impression upon the memory, but otherwise. the shock of loss, the agony of parting, the fear and dread of the suffering of loved ones, the bitterness of self-reproach, the message of loss—these are the things that return and return again; and of such as these were the hours of that afternoon to rosamund. not only on that first night, once more in the small upper room at mother cary's, but often and often during her after life did the shock and agony of those hours return to her.

past the form of the station master, gloating in his satisfaction at being the first to tell her the evil news, she had seen father cary's familiar form descending from his wagon. she scarcely remarked his surprise at her being there, his disappointment that doctor blake and the nurse had not come on that train, his helping her into the wagon, and his description of the events of the night before. the drive past the dull little houses and the store, the closed cottages, the big hotels with their uncurtained windows staring like eyeless sockets, the woods, the glimpses of the path where she had faced john ogilvie; the turn at last toward the brown cottage she had come to love so dearly; the blackened, smoking hole that alone remained of it; then the half mile farther to the house where ogilvie lay—those were the moments of most intense pain, because of their suspense.

the story was simple enough. the little household had gone to bed early, and toward midnight grace had awakened with a whispering fear of smoke. she roused the others, and eleanor had bundled sleepy tim in blankets, thrown other bed covering out of a window, and gone quietly down with grace. matt and sue, wild with fear, rushed out ahead of them, shouting, and their cries aroused the nearest neighbors. country folk come quickly to a fire, although there is seldom anything to do but watch and surmise; a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time, and a few things were rescued from the blazing house. in spite of the pleading of the women, grace stayed to watch the flames, wringing her hands, and calling rosamund's name. eleanor was half frantic herself, with the alternate efforts at calming timmy and beseeching grace to go away. but grace, loving and faithful, was crying at the loss of the house and the things in it that had seemed to her so beautiful, and that were so dear because they belonged to rosamund. she could not be persuaded to leave, but stood wringing her hands and saying, over and over,

"oh, miss rose! oh, miss rose!"

"a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time."

"a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time."

after the first alarm, aunt sue became calm enough to tell the questioners that all were safe, that miss randall and yetta were in new york. but the man who was urging white rosy up the long road from the valley, the man who, at last, came running, stumbling, panting up to the little band of watchers, who heard grace tobet calling a beloved name and sobbing, did not wait for explanation. he looked among them for one face, and found it missing; then he rushed into the blazing house.

there were brave men who, for the sake of all he had done for their women and children, went after him; there were strong arms to bear him to the nearest shelter, and loving hands to tend him. it was not long before mother cary came, bundled up in the wagon beside her big husband, to take command of everything.

so short and simple a story of a ruin so great! rosamund sat dumbly in the kitchen of the little house where ogilvie lay, while mother cary told her, braced beside her on the little padded crutch, her tender old hands smoothing the girl's hair, the sweet old voice speaking words of courage and hope.

"pap's done telegraphed for doctor blake," she said, "him that's his friend, him that sent yetta up here. he's an eye doctor, but he'll know everything to do for everything else as well. we reckoned he'd come on this train. that's how come pap was there to meet it. howsomever, he'll be here before the day's out, you mark me; an' he'll say jest what i'm sayin'—john ain't goin' to die. he's a goin' to get well."

rosamund looked up at her, and the old woman understood. "i wouldn't, ef i was you, darlin', honey! no, now don't ye go thinkin' that a way; it ain't that he's burnt so bad, 'cause he ain't. hair grows quick, an' that did get sco'ched a leetle mite. i reckon all ails him is thet he breathed in the smoke."

half-remembered tales of horror passed through the girl's mind, and she hid her face in her hands.

"oh, well, honey, ef you goin' to take on about it, maybe you better jest come to the door and peek in at him. i guess when all's said an' done you got more right than anybody else."

"ah, no," rosamund cried, "no, i have not!"

but mother cary touched her cheek. "honey, he wouldn't 'a' gone into the house that a way ef so be it he hadn't 'a' thought all he loved best in the world was there. a body don't go into flames for nothin'! an' it wasn't no ways like the doctor to lose his head—now was it? you come right along in here with yo' ma cary."

as long as she lived rosamund could recall that room—the dingy white walls, the oval braided rug upon the floor; the tiny looking-glass and little corner washstand; the bureau with its characteristic assortment of shaving things, a stethoscope and a small photograph in a plush frame of a woman dressed in the fashion of thirty years before; the bedstead of turned yellow wood, the bright patchwork quilt over the feather-bed—and ogilvie's form lying there, his flushed face, his heavy breathing, his restless hands.

the woman who was watching beside his bed arose, and rosamund crossed the narrow space. she bent over him a little, put out her hand, but shrank back, restrained perhaps by the fear of an emotion which threatened to be too strong for her.

she turned, went blindly from the little room, and pa cary led her out to the wagon. if he talked to her on the way to his house she did not hear him. tim saw them coming, and ran to meet her. the pressure of his warm little arms about her neck, in the "tight squeeze" that he usually reserved for eleanor, did more than anything else to bring her back to a normal state of mind.

but after his first embrace, tim wanted to go to the stable with father cary. eleanor was standing in the little familiar doorway, under the overhanging roof made by the upper floor. she waited, as if spell-bound, while rosamund walked slowly up the path to the house; it was the look on the girl's face that held her back, for her heart was reaching out in sympathy. at last rosamund stood before her, and they looked into each other's eyes; then eleanor opened her arms wide, and with a sob drew rosamund to her.

"oh, my sweet, my rose!" she cried, her tears on rosamund's cold cheek. "i knew! i knew! i knew it was john! but he'll get well, darling. he will live for your sake!"

but rosamund went past her into the house, looked about the little familiar room as if she had never seen it before, and seated herself in a chair near the table.

eleanor took off her hat and unfastened her coat as if she had been a child, instead of the stricken woman that she was; rosamund looked up at her in a dumb agony of appeal.

eleanor repeated the story she had already heard from father cary; at the end she paused, hesitated, and said,

"but there is one thing more that you've got to know, rose. the house was set on fire."

rosamund looked up at her, as if waiting.

"oh, don't look like that, my darling! try to understand! someone set fire to the house—it's so cruel to have to tell you!"

suddenly rosamund's face changed from its blankness to a look of horror.

"then—if—i—had gone away, as he wanted me to—oh! eleanor, then he would not—"

but eleanor's arms were around her. "don't, rosamund! don't let yourself do that! there's not one of us could live and be sane, if we dwelt on our 'ifs'!"

"but it is true!"

"it is not true. it is not! because there was no 'if'; there could not have been! you had to stay; you had to obey your own reasoning, not his. we all have to decide for ourselves. it is when we don't, that we get into trouble. i can assure you of that, i of all others. i married because i was told it was the best thing to do—but you must forget i told you that!"

at least it brought rosamund to a thought of something else. "eleanor!" she exclaimed, her hand reaching out towards her friend.

but it was not the moment for eleanor to think of herself. "rose, listen to me," she said. "someone set fire to the house. there is no doubt of that. now you will have to make up your mind what to do—there will have to be an inquiry, they say."

"why?"

"why? because the people who look after those things will want to find out who did it. they will want to fix the blame."

"but i don't understand! it is my house! what difference does it make to anyone else?"

"and you don't care?"

rosamund arose, and mercifully burst into tears. "oh, eleanor!" she sobbed, "how can you ask me that? do you think i care for the mere loss of a few sticks and stones and things, when he——"

again eleanor's comforting arms were around her, and eleanor's hand on her hair. "oh, you darling! i knew you'd say that! i knew you would! they cannot do anything without your consent!"

apparently in relief from some doubt or fear, she even laughed. rosamund looked at her in amazement.

"what on earth do you mean?" she began.

but before there could be time for explanation the door opened, and father cary brought his little wife into the room in his arms, and set her down in a chair.

mother cary always brought an atmosphere of happiness with her, but this time, it seemed to rosamund, she was also the personification of all that was angelic and beautiful, a messenger of hope, a bearer of glad tidings.

"well," she began, as soon as pap had set her down and unbundled her, "they come! my, that young woman knows jest how to go about things! i been nursin' all my life, seems like, and that girl can't be more than twenty-five; but the way she took a holt o' things did beat me! my! i wasn't one bit worried at leavin' him with her, not one bit! an' doctor blake's goin' to set up all night."

she smiled into rosamund's beseeching eyes.

"doctor blake says they ain't a doubt but he'll be all right in no time!" she said, and mentally asked forgiveness for stretching the truth. "he says his eyes ain't hurt a bit, far as he can tell, an' it's only the smoke got into them, that's all. an' anybody knows that ain't much! land! think how many smokin' chimblys there be, an' nobody givin' a thought to 'em!"

it was not until after supper, when tim had been sent to bed, rather joyful than otherwise in his excitement over the return to the carys', and eleanor was trying to put him to sleep by telling him a story, that rosamund went upstairs to the room that had been yetta's, to be alone with her thoughts. she was never one of those, usually members of a large family, who can take council with themselves while others are in the room; she needed solitude, if she would adjust herself and set the chambers of her mind in order. now she had much to think of, for the events of the past three days had been incongruous enough. she smiled as she remembered that, scarcely forty-eight hours before, she had been sitting in an opera box listening to pendleton's inanities; but there was no smile when she thought of ogilvie.

presently she was aware, through the silence, of a timid hand on the door. she had scarcely had time to do more than speak to grace, who had sat, through the earlier part of the evening, as if turned to stone; now something told her she was there.

grace, white and wan, came over the threshold and threw her arms about her friend, resting her head on rosamund's shoulder. for a few moments they stood so, clasped in the sympathy that women convey to each other in that silent manner. then grace released herself a little, looked into rosamund's face, and whispered.

"miss rose, he did it!"

rosamund's thoughts had been of ogilvie alone; for a moment she did not understand. then eleanor's words came back to her; and all the while she protested, she knew the truth of what grace said.

but, out of pity, protest she must. "oh, no, grace! no! don't think that! don't let yourself think it!"

but grace, even whiter than before, met her eyes steadily. "i don't have to think it," she said, quietly. "i know it. you know it, too."

at the agony in the poor creature's eyes rosamund forgot all her own. "no," she cried, almost aloud. their lowered voices in the silence of the house seemed to add to the horror of it. "no, i do not know, and neither do you! don't say it, grace. don't think it. grace! oh, my poor, dear grace!"

but grace shook her head impatiently, as if it were not the time for sympathy. she clasped rosamund's two hands, looked at her intently, and said, "miss rose, i tell you i don't have to think; i know!"

rosamund gasped, but grace went on. "i saw him from my window, an' rob tobet and nels' dunn were with him. they were skulkin' in the shadow, but i made 'em out. it was the first time i'd seen joe, since—the first time, and to see him that a way!"

"grace!" rosamund cried. grace might have held her hand in a flame, and seemed to suffer less. rosamund thought it was more than she could bear to witness. but grace went on ruthlessly,

"they were watchin' and watchin' the house; an' after a while i saw joe wavin' his arms at the other two, an' then they went off. it wasn't very long after that—maybe half an hour or so—that i smelled smoke. an', miss rose, when we got down an' out, i saw what nobody else seemed to take any notice of—i saw three corners of the house all blazin' up at the same time."

rosamund had drawn her down to the side of the bed; now grace paused, grasped rosamund's hand, bent towards her, and whispered, hoarsely,

"miss rose, houses don't catch on fire that a way less'n somebody sets 'em!"

they looked at each other mutely for what seemed an eternity, sharing and accepting the horrid significance of it. at last rosamund, shaking off the spell with a sharp indrawing of the breath, drew grace to her, held her, everything else forgotten save that here was an agony greater than her own.

for a long hour they sat there talking, planning. grace was torn between her sense of righteousness and her love for joe, fanned anew as it was by his present need of her protection.

"i thought i had stopped carin' for him," she whispered. "but this—this ain't like the—other thing—you know what i mean. that didn't hurt anybody but himself, and it wasn't anybody else's business, not the gov'ment's nor anybody's. but this is different. they—they hang for this, i reckon!"

rosamund shuddered. "grace, no one must know of it! no one must know!"

"i heard pap cary say they was to be an inquiry."

"it is my house. i can stop anything of that sort. i have no insurance on it, and there will be no one to press the inquiry if i don't. no one must know, grace."

for a moment grace looked at her. then she said, "but what if—he dies?"

rosamund had forgotten her own anxiety in grace's. now, with a little moan of pain, she hid her face in her hands.

"that's the way," grace whispered, hopelessly. "you're bound to see it different, when it's your own man."

they sat in silence for a while, each so occupied with thoughts of her own love as to forget all else. presently grace stood up, as if to admit that there was nothing further to be said. "well," she sighed hopelessly.

but rosamund stood up, too, and laid her hands on grace's shoulders.

"no matter what happens, grace, nobody must know that joe was so much as seen near there."

"but supposin' doctor ogilvie——?"

"not even then," rosamund said, with white, trembling lips. "he has given all his thought to saving life. do you think he would want—? no!"

but grace shook her head. "i think mis' reeves suspicions," she said.

"she does," rosamund said, "and she has already been warning me against the investigation. i know she wants to shield joe."

but grace's conscience was made all the keener by her reawakened love. "well, i'm goin' to tell ma cary," she said. "she knows more'n all of us put together."

they stopped at eleanor's door, and the three found mother cary alone in the room that was kitchen and dining-room and confessional, as need arose. pap had gone back to the doctor's house, too anxious to remain away.

mother cary heard all grace had to tell, asked a few questions of her and eleanor, then sat with her worn old hands clasped in her lap, thinking it over. grace's attitude was one of hopeless waiting. rosamund watched her, pitying; grief brings no outward beauty to the lowly, she thought, yet much—how much—of that beauty of soul which perishes not!

at last mother cary spoke. "miss rose is right," she said, looking at grace. "nobody must know what we know 'ceptin' jest our own selves. i wouldn't even say a word of it to pap; 'cause the better men folks be, the more they hold on to the letter o' the law. an' fur as i can make out, this here is one o' the times when the letter o' the law is better forgotten. tellin' on joe ain't goin' to help doctor ogilvie any, that i can see, nor anybody else; an' there's jest a chanct that keepin' silence may help joe."

"but joe did it," grace said. "i reckon he's man enough to take his punishment."

"i reckon he is," mother cary agreed. "he's a-takin' it right this minute, too, knowing what his act has done to the doctor. i sure do believe that's all the punishmint joe needs. the other kind would be different, 'cause what he's done is done. i ain't never had time to puzzle out the whys an' whyfors o' lots o' things, punishmint among 'em; but one thing i know, an' have known ever sence the dear lord entrusted me with little child'en o' my own. when punishmint is jest hittin' back, it don't do anybody a mite o' good. less'n it helps 'em not to do it again, it ain't any use whatsoever. better jest leave it in the hands o' the dear lord, who sees further'n we can, ef you ain't sure it's goin' to help, not hender. an' tellin' on joe ain't goin' to help the doctor nor joe neither, 'cause joe ain't the kind that punishmint helps."

again there was a silence, until grace moved a little, unclasped and clasped her hands, and spoke. "i must go back to my own house," she said.

rosamund, startled, was about to protest, but mother cary nodded. "of course," she said, "he'll be needin' you awful bad now, honey."

and in spite of rosamund's pleading, grace refused eleanor's offer to go with her, and took her way, alone, through the night, down the mountain, to her dark, lonely little house. afterward, rosamund often marveled at mother cary's allowing it, even urging it, for usually she was the gentlest of souls, protecting everyone, careful of everyone's comfort; and surely grace was now in no condition to go.

but no more than grace herself did mother cary hesitate. she hobbled about the kitchen, packing a little basket of food; she had eleanor bring in one of pap's lanterns, and lighted it; she bade rosamund make grace some tea, and forced the trembling creature to drink it; and at last she opened the door for her.

grace started out, but came back into the room to kiss them, and they saw that she was smiling; it had been long since poor grace had smiled!

"i'll go up to my chamber and wave the lantern when i get there, ef all's well," she told them. "an' i can always see your light, ma cary!"

they watched, standing shivering in the doorway, until her lantern disappeared at the bend of the road. tim, aroused by their voices, cried out, and eleanor went to him.

mother cary and rosamund began to straighten the room, putting away the boxes and pails that had been opened for grace's basket. rosamund was so intent on her thoughts that she would not have noticed that her own cheeks were wet, if she had not seen mother cary's eyes brimming with tears. after a while she cried,

"oh, i don't see how she can walk that far, and at night, too! why wouldn't you let her wait for pa cary?"

the old woman shook her head. "honey," she said, "ef all is as i make it out to be, grace won't go all that way alone and un'tended. the woods around here have years an' eyes, an' ef her foot stumbles, there'll be someone there to hold her up, you mark my words."

"oh, she is not strong enough!" the girl still protested.

then mother cary leaned towards her, took the white hand in both her own, and asked, "honey, ef 'twas your man, wouldn't you go?"

rosamund threw back her head with a sob, and mother cary opened her arms.