Her eyes could see quite plainly now in the dark closet. There was a big button on the door. She no sooner discovered it than she put up her hand and tried to turn it. It was tight and made a slight squeak in turning. She stopped but the noise seemed to have no effect upon the evenly modulated tones inside. Cautiously she moved the button again, holding the latch firmly in her other hand lest the door should suddenly fly open. It was an exciting moment when at last the button was turned entirely away from the door frame and the lifted latch swung free in Miranda’s hand. The door opened outward. If it were allowed to go it would probably strike against the table. Miranda only allowed it to open a crack. She could hear words now, and the voice reminded her of something unpleasant. The least little bit more she dared open the door, and she could see, as she had expected, Marcia’s bonnet and shoulder cape as she sat at the other side of the room. This then was the room of the messenger who had sent for Mrs. Spafford so peremptorily. The next thing was to discover the identity of the messenger. Miranda had suspicions. The night before she had seen a man lurking near the Spafford house when she went out in the garden to feed the chickens. She had watched him from behind the lilac bush, and when he had finally gone away she had followed him some distance until he turned into the old corduroy road and was lost in the gathering dusk. The man she had seen before, and had reason to suspect. It was not for nothing that she had braved her grandmother and gone hunting wild strawberries out of season. With the caution of a creature of the forest Miranda opened the door an inch further, and applied her eye to the latch hole again. The man’s head was in full range of her eye then, and her suspicion proved true. When Marcia entered the big room and the heavy oak door closed behind her her heart seemed almost choking her, but she tried with all her might to be calm. She was to know the worst now. On the other side of the room in a large arm-chair, with his feet extended on another and covered by a travelling shawl, reclined a man. Marcia went toward him eagerly, and then stopped: “Mr. Temple!” There was horror, fear, reproach in the way she spoke it. “I know you are astonished, Mrs. Spafford, that the messenger should be one so unworthy, and let me say at the beginning that I am more thankful than I can express that your letter of forgiveness reached me before I was obliged to start on my sorrowful commission. I beg you will sit down and be as comfortable as you can while I explain further. Pardon my not rising. I have met with a bad sprain caused by falling from my horse on the way, and was barely able to reach this stopping place. My ankle is swollen so badly that I cannot step upon my foot.”