He reached Darley at half-past three in the morning and went to the only hotel in the place. The sleepy night-clerk rose from his lounge behind the counter in the office and assigned him to a room to which a colored boy, vigorously rubbing his eyes, conducted him. Left alone in his room, he sat down on the edge of his bed and started to undress, but with a sigh he stopped. “What's the use o' me lyin' down almost at daybreak?” he asked himself. “I mought as well be on the way home. I cayn't sleep nohow.” Blowing out his lamp, he went down-stairs and roused the clerk again. “Will I have to pay fer that bed ef I don't use it?” he questioned. “Why, no, Mr. Bishop,” said the clerk. “Well, I believe I 'll start out home.” “Is your team in town?” asked the clerk. “The team I'm a-goin' to use is. I'm goin' to foot it. I've done the like before this.” “Well, it's a purty tough stretch,” smiled the clerk. “But the roads are good.” IV [Illustration: 9035] T was a little after sunrise; the family had just left the breakfast-table when Bishop walked in; his shoes and trousers were damp with dew and covered with the dust of the road. His wife saw him entering the gate and called out to him from the hall: “Well, I declare! Didn't you go to Atlanta?” He came slowly up the steps, dragging his feet after him. He had the appearance of a man beaten by every storm that could fall upon a human being. “Yes, I went,” he said, doggedly. He passed her and went into the sitting-room, where his brother-inlaw stood at the fireplace lighting his pipe with a live coal of fire on the tip of a stick. Abner Daniel looked at him critically, his brows raised a little as he puffed, but he said nothing. Mrs. Bishop came in behind her husband, sweeping him from head to foot with her searching eyes. “You don't mean to tell me you walked out heer this mornin',” she cried. “Lord have mercy!” “I don't know as I've prepared any set speech on the subject,” said her husband, testily; “but I walked. I could 'a' gone to a livery an' ordered out a team, but I believe thar's more'n one way o' wearin' sackcloth an' ashes, an' the sooner I begin the better I 'll feel.” Abner Daniel winked; the scriptural allusion appealed to his fancy, and he smiled impulsively. “That thar is,” he said. “Thar's a whole way an' a half way. Some folks jest wear it next to the skin whar it don't show, with broadcloth ur silk on the outside. They think ef it scratches a little that 'll satisfy the Lord an' hoodwink other folks. But I believe He meant it to be whole hog or none.” Mrs. Bishop was deaf to this philosophy. “I don't see,” she said, in her own field of reflection--“I don't see, I say, how you got to Atlanta; attended to business; seed Adele; an' got back heer at sunrise. Why, Alfred--” But Bishop interrupted her. “Have you all had prayers yet?”