"I'm too--late!"

Agony rang in the quiet words.

"And I've travelled day and night! Her letter was forwarded to me."

The letter burned against Doris's bosom like a tangible thing. She
crossed the room and sank beside the bed.

They all slipped through the following days as people do who realize
that troubles do not come to them, but are overtaken on the way. They
seemed always to have been there; some people pass on the other side,
but if one's path lies close, then one must go with what courage
possible--look hard, feel and groan with the understanding, and pass on
as best he can bearing the memory with him.

Father Noble came from many miles back in the hills. Riding his sturdy
little horse, his loose black cloak floating like benignant wings
bearing him on; his radiant old face shining even in the face of death.

He stayed until the wound in the hillside was covered over Meredith's
little form; stayed to see the flowers hide the scar, murmuring again
and again: "In the hope of joyful resurrection." His was the task to
bridge life and death, and there was no doubt in his beautiful soul.

"And now," he said, after four days, "I must go to Cleaver's
Clearing"--the Clearing was twenty hard miles away. "There are children
there who never heard of God until I took some toys to them last
Christmas. Then they thought that I was God. They are sick now, poor