Molly, too, knelt, and Elvin threw his arms upon the table, and laid his head upon them. But Dilly stood erect. From time to time, she glanced curiously from the parson to the lovely darkened world outside her little square of window, and smiled slightly, tenderly, as if out there she saw the visible God. The parson prayed for "this sick soul, our brother," over and over, in many phrases, and with true and passionate desire. And when the prayer was done, he put his hand on the young man's shoulder, and said, with a yearning persuasiveness,-- "Tell it now, my brother! Jesus is here." Elvin raised his head, with a sudden fierce gesture toward Dilly. "She knows," he said. "She can see the past. She'll tell you what I've done." "I 'ain't got nothin' to tell, dear," answered Dilly, peacefully. "Everything you've done's between you an' God A'mighty. I 'ain't got nothin' to tell!" Then she went out, and, deftly unharnessing the horse, put him in her little shed, and gave him a feed of oats. The hens had gone to bed without their supper. "No matter, biddies," she said, conversationally, as she passed their roost. "I'll make it up to you in the mornin'!" When she entered the house again, Elvin still sat there, staring stolidly into the dusk. The parson was praying, and Molly, by the window, was holding the sill tightly clasped by both hands, as if threatening herself into calm. When the parson rose, he turned to Elvin, less like the pastor than the familiar friend. One forgot his gray hairs in the loving simplicity of his tone. "My son," he said, tenderly, "tell it all! God is merciful." But again Dilly put in her voice. "Don't you push him, Passon! Let him speak or not, jest as he's a mind to. Let God A'mighty do it His way! Don't _you_ do it!" Darkness settled in the room, and the heavenly hunter's-moon rose and dispelled it. "O God! can I?" broke forth the young man. "O God! if I tell, I'll go through with it. I will, so help me!" The moving patterns of the vine at the window began to etch themselves waveringly on the floor. Dilly bent, and traced the outline of a leaf with her finger. "I'll tell!" cried Elvin, in a voice exultant over the prospect of freedom. "I'll tell it all. I wanted money. The girl I meant to have was goin' with somebody else, an' I'd got to scrape together some money, quick. I burnt down my house an' barn. I got the insurance money. I sent some of it out West, to put into that furniture business, an' Dan Forbes has made way with it. I only kept enough to take Rosa an' me out there. I'll give up that, an' go to jail; an' if the Lord spares my life, when I come out I'll pay it back, principal an' int'rest." Molly gave one little moan, and buried her face in her hands. The parson and Dilly rose, by one impulse, and went forward to Elvin, who sat upright, trembling from excitement past. Dilly reached him first. She put both her hands on his forehead, and smoothed back his hair.