"After what I've been hearin' from ye, I'm 'most afraid to come, but I'll do it.

Poor Tom! I remember the day him an' Flora was married--" But the eavesdropper heard no more; he was on his way up the back stairs.

Life and light--and purpose had come to his face once more.
Margaret was out for the afternoon.

Unostentatiously, he went to her room, and for the next few minutes occupied himself busily therein.

He was so quiet that his mother, sewing in her own room, would not have heard him except for the obstinacy of one of the drawers in Margaret's bureau.