Angélique groped for Maria, not daring to call her name, and caught and
ran with some one until they neared the light, when she found it was
the dumpy little figure of her cousin Clarice.

As soon as the girls were gone, the man who had broken up their hempseed
sowing advanced a few steps on the pavement. He listened, and that
darker shadow in the angle of the walls was perceptible to him.

"Are you here?"

"I am here," answered Maria.

Rice Jones's sister could not sit many minutes in the damp old building
without being missed by the girls and her family. His voice trembled.
She could hear his heart beating with large strokes. His presence
surrounded her like an atmosphere, and in the darkness she clutched her
own breast to keep the rapture from physically hurting her.

"Maria, did you know that my wife was dead?"

"Oh, James, no!"

Her whisper was more than a caress. It was surrender and peace and
forgiveness. It was the snapping of a tension which had held her two
years.

"Oh, James, when I saw you to-night I did not know what to do. I have
not been well. You have borne it so much better than I have."

"I thought," said Dr. Dunlap, "it would be best for us to talk matters