terrible."

"In so far as I can help him, he shall succeed," was all Rowland could
say. He turned to Miss Garland, to bid her good night, and she rose and
put out her hand. She was very straightforward, but he could see that if
she was too modest to be bold, she was much too simple to be shy. "Have
you no charge to lay upon me?" he asked--to ask her something.

She looked at him a moment and then, although she was not shy, she
blushed. "Make him do his best," she said.

Rowland noted the soft intensity with which the words were uttered. "Do
you take a great interest in him?" he demanded.

"Certainly."

"Then, if he will not do his best for you, he will not do it for me."
She turned away with another blush, and Rowland took his leave.

He walked homeward, thinking of many things. The great Northampton
elms interarched far above in the darkness, but the moon had risen and
through scattered apertures was hanging the dusky vault with silver
lamps. There seemed to Rowland something intensely serious in the scene
in which he had just taken part. He had laughed and talked and braved it
out in self-defense; but when he reflected that he was really meddling
with the simple stillness of this little New England home, and that he
had ventured to disturb so much living security in the interest of a
far-away, fantastic hypothesis, he paused, amazed at his temerity. It
was true, as Cecilia had said, that for an unofficious man it was a
singular position. There stirred in his mind an odd feeling of annoyance