"Beware, lad, of women!" he importuned me.

"Humph! You still despise the sex on account of

that affair with the colleen of the short upper lip."

"Verily. And the eyes of that little lady, who guided

your grandfather back from the other world, reminded

me strongly of her! Bah, these women!"

"Precious little you know about them!" I retorted.

"The devil I don't!"

"No," said Stoddard, "invoke the angels, not the

devil!"

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"Hear him! Hear him! A priest with no knowledge

of the world."

"Alas, my cloth! And you fling it at me after I have

gone through battle, murder and sudden death with you

gentlemen!"

"We thank you, sir, for that last word," said Larry

mockingly. "I am reminded of the late Lord Alfred: "I waited for the train at Coventry;

I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,

To watch the three tall spires,-' "

he quoted, looking off through the twilight toward St.

Agatha's. "I can't see a blooming spire!"

The train was now roaring down upon us and we

clung to this light mood for our last words. Between

men, gratitude is a thing best understood in silence;

and these good friends, I knew, felt what I could not

say.

"Before the year is out we shall all meet again," cried

Stoddard hopefully, seizing the bags.

"Ah, if we could only be sure of that!" I replied. And

in a moment they were both waving their hands to me

from the rear platform, and I strode back homeward

over the lake.

A mood of depression was upon me; I had lost much

that day, and what I had gained-my restoration to the

regard of the kindly old man of my own blood, who had

appealed for my companionship in terms hard to deny-

seemed trifling as I tramped over the ice. Perhaps

Pickering, after all, was the real gainer by the day's

event. My grandfather had said nothing to allay my

doubts as to Marion Devereux's strange conduct, and

yet his confidence in her was apparently unshaken.

I tramped on, and leaving the lake, half-unconsciously

struck into the wood beyond the dividing wall, where

snow-covered leaves and twigs rattled and broke under

my tread. I came out into an open space beyond St.

Agatha's, found the walk and turned toward home.

As I neared the main entrance to the school the door

opened and a woman came out under the overhanging

lamp. She carried a lantern, and turned with a hand

outstretched to some one who followed her with careful

steps.

"Ah, Marian," cried my grandfather, "it's ever the

task of youth to light the way of age."




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