the way out."

Helena's lips were quivering, tears were dimming the brown eyes,
trembling on the lashes, as she stepped now to Madison's side.

"It is God who has shown us the way out," she whispered brokenly--and
dropping down before the chair, her little form shaken with sobs, she
hid her face on the Patriarch's knees.

And serene and peaceful as a child in sleep, a smile like a benediction
on the saintly face, the Patriarch sat in his armchair by the fireplace
where he had been wont to sit in years gone by--and so he had passed on.

The Patriarch was dead.




--XXIV--

VALE!


The years have passed--but in their passing have brought few changes to
the little village nestling in the Maine pines that border on the sea.
Not many changes--it is as though Time had touched it loath to touch at
all; as though some spirit lingering there, sweet and fresh and vernal,
had bade Time stay its hand.

Not many changes--the same familiar faces gather around the stove in the