“No, I think I made a sort of martyr of you,” Ethel confessed. “I knew you did it impulsively, highly wrought up as you were over your poor father's death. You can't imagine how I worried the first few days after--after you left. You see, no one knew whether Jeff Warren would live or not. Oh, I was happy, Paul, when the doctor declared he was out of danger! I would have given a great deal then to have known how to reach you, but--but no one knew. Then, somehow, as the years passed, the impression got out that you were dead. Everybody seemed to believe it except old Mr. Tye, the shoemaker.” “My faithful old friend!” Paul said. “He was constantly giving me good advice which I refused to take.” “I sometimes go into his shop and sit and talk to him,” Ethel continued. “He is a queer old man, more like a saint than an ordinary human being. He declares he is in actual communion with God--says he has visions of things not seen by ordinary sight. He told me once, not long ago, that you were safe and well, and that you would come home again, and be happier than you ever were before. I remember I tried to hope that he knew. How strange that he guessed aright!” “I understand him now better than I did when I was here,” Paul returned. “I didn't know it then, but I now believe such men as he are spiritually wiser than all the astute materialists the world has produced. What they know they get by intuition, and that comes from the very fountain of infinite wisdom to the humble perhaps more than to the high and mighty.” “I am very happy to see you again,” Ethel declared, a shadow crossing her face; “but, Paul, you find me--you happen to find me in really great trouble.” “You!” he cried. “Why?” Ethel breathed out a tremulous sigh. “You have heard me speak of my cousin, Jennie Buford. She and I are more intimate than most sisters. We have been together almost daily all our lives. She is very ill. We were down to see her yesterday. She had an operation performed at a hospital a week ago, and her condition is quite critical. We would not have come back up here, but no one is allowed to see her, and I could be of no service. I am afraid she is going to die, and if she _should_--” Ethel's voice clogged, and her eyes filled. “I'm so sorry,” Paul said, “but you mustn't give up hope.” “Life seems so cruel--such a great waste of everything that is really worth while,” Ethel said, rebelliously. “Jennie's mother and father are almost crazed with grief. Jennie is engaged to a nice young man down there, and he is prostrated over it. Why, oh why, do such things happen?” “There is a good reason for everything,” Paul replied, a flare of gentle encouragement in his serious eyes. “Often the things that seem the worst really are the best in the end.”