“Oh, yes, she did!” I tranquilly replied. “That was why she would never have a light in her room at night for fear the picture might be seen. She slept with it beneath her cheek, and washed it with her tears, and dried it with her kisses. Oh, yes, she grieved!” His eyes began to look sunken and his face was working convulsively. Then I told him how I had found the picture and wrapped it in a handkerchief and had given it silently to her in his presence, and she had been grateful, not because she was ashamed of her love or her sorrow, but because she wished to spare him suffering. And with his clenched fist he struck the table, blow after blow, crying furiously: “You lie--you baggage--you lie!” Then suddenly turning his trembling hands palms upward, he pleaded: “Carrie--tell me that you lie!” But coldly I answered: “I do not lie at all, sir--and you know I do not--besides, here are dear Miss Linda’s very own words: ‘Every day of my life I lose my love--and every day the pain is fresh and new!’” His eyes roamed from side to side--little bubbles formed in the corners of his lips, his hand went up to his throat and tried to loosen his collar, and I could just hear the whispered words that left his lips: “Linda--Linda--Linda!” and then, I struck my last blow at him. (Oh, Miss Linda, to-day, I ask your pardon, but then I was hard and pitiless, as only the very young can be.) And I went coldly on: “She said to me, she did not wish you to know of her sorrow, because, _perhaps_”--I leaned on the table and brought myself nearer to him--“_perhaps_ you _might_ feel remorse!” He threw one hand above his head and gave a cry: “Perhaps? perhaps? only perhaps?” and suddenly fell forward on the table, with outspread arms, and I heard him call upon the God he had never truly served and ask the mercy he had denied his own child! And, as I left the room by a second door opening into the entry where hung my hat and cloak, the vindictive devil that possessed me made me say quite clearly: “As a father pitieth his own children!” I was tying on my hat when I distinctly heard the boys quarreling as to whether or no there would be prayers held in my honor--some saying, “yes, because I was company,” and the younger ones arguing that, as I was not a “grown-up,” “there’d be no family prayers,” then suddenly there was a howl, and I knew they were coming to blows. I slipped from the house, without good-bye to any one, and as I passed the study window, I glanced in and saw the “gray head” bowed upon the table and two hands beating feebly, aimlessly, and suddenly I seemed to hear Miss Linda’s husky whisper saying: “And only remember how old and tired and tried he is, dear!” And I cried aloud: “Forgive me, forgive me, dear Miss Linda--I did it because I loved you so!” and looking across the years--I say now--I love you so, dear LITTLE SILENT SINGER. An Old Hulk An Old Hulk