"There she is now," said Major Dale, as Dorothy gave one more knock. "Daughter, come this way. We are waiting for you." How hard her heart beat! And how foolish she was to be nervous! "This gentleman," began Major Dale, "wants you to hear a story. It may be sad for ears so young, but perhaps the knowledge that you have helped Mr. Burlock to settle one point in this story may make it more interesting to you." The faint moonlight, that now streamed from the spring sky, made a silvery glow upon the faces of the two men, and even in the shadows, that of Miles Burlock showed features firm and what might be called handsome. Dorothy had often seen him before, but he had never looked that way. His face was clearer now he was changed. "Child," he said, extending his hand to her, "You need not fear Miles Burlock now. He is a man--no longer a slave to rum--but a wake at last." "I am so glad!" Dorothy stammered. "Yes, that day you took my hand, although it was not fit for yours, and the way you asked me to join in the League work came like a miracle of grace. Perhaps it is--because--because you are so like the child I lost." He bowed his head, and for a moment, was silent, then he looked at Dorothy again. "As you are the one chosen to help this man find himself--for he has been morally lost for years,--I feel it may be that you, too, may help me find my own child," Miles Burlock went on. "At any rate it is best that you should hear the story, for when men like us have passed away the children may be here to remember what others will be glad to forget about me--to forget that I tried to undo the wrong I had done to those lost to me now." Major Dale opened the door to the sitting room, and there the man continued his story. "As a boy I was cared for by an over-indulgent aunt, and I have often thought that the fact of having lost my own mother might, in some way, make an excuse to heaven for me, for the boy or girl who never knows a mother has suffered more than mortal can count,--in ways more numerous than mortal can see, and a motherless babe is the saddest story in all human history. Well, money had been left for me, and this too, I believe, was an inherited wrong, for too early in life had I begun to feel independent. Later that indifference to discipline grew to recklessness, and then the final evil came in the shape of bad company." Major Dale stopped the speaker for a moment and Dorothy was glad to move a little nearer her father. Somehow, this strange story was unlike anything she had ever heard, and while it fascinated her, it also frightened her, for she had not before known anyone who had lived such a wild life.