Soon after his leaving the Dempsy Carters returned without Joseph's parents; they had gone to town and were not expected home until "chore time." "All right," Patsy sighed. "Now ye had best all go your ways and I'll bide till morning." "But can you?" Janet Payne asked it, wonderingly. "I thought you said you had to be in Arden to-day?" A smile, whimsical and baffling, crept to the corners of Patsy's mouth. "Sure, life is crammed with things ye think have to be done to-day till they're matched against a sudden greater need. Chance and I started the wee lad on his journey, and 'twas meant I should see him safe to the end, I'm thinking. Good-by." Gregory Jessup lingered a moment behind the others; his eyes were suspiciously red, and the hands that gripped Patsy's shook the least bit. "I wanted to say something: If--if you should ever happen to run up against Billy Burgeman--anywhere--don't be afraid to do him a kindness. He--he wouldn't mind it from you." Patsy leaned against the door and watched him go. "There's another good lad. I'd like to be finding him again, too, some day." She pressed her hands over her eyes with a fierce little groan, as if she would blot out the enveloping tragedy along with her surroundings. "Faith! what is the meaning of life, anyway? Until to-day it has seemed such a simple, straight road; I could have drawn a fair map of it myself, marking well the starting-point and tracing it reasonably true to the finish. But to-night--to-night--'tis all a tangle of lanes and byways. There's no sign-post ahead--and God alone knows where it's leading." She went back to the spare chamber and took up her watching by the bedside; and for the rest of that waning day she sat as motionless as everything else in the room. The farm wife came and went softly, in between her preparations for supper. When it was ready she tried her best to urge Patsy down-stairs for a mouthful. But the girl refused to stir. "I couldn't. The wee lad might come back while I was gone and find no one to reach him a hand or smile him a welcome." A little later, as the dark gathered, she begged two candles and stood them on the stand beside the bed. Something in her movements or the flickering light must have pierced his stupor, for Joseph moaned slightly and in a moment opened his eyes. Patsy leaned over him tenderly; could she only keep him content until the mother came and guard the mysterious borderland against all fear or pain, "Laddy, laddy," she coaxed, "do ye mind me--now?" The veriest wisp of a smile answered her. "And were ye for playing Jack yourself, tramping off to find the castle with a window in it for every day in the year?" Her voice was full of gentle, teasing laughter, the voice of a mother playing with a very little child. "I'm hoping ye didn't forget the promise--ye didn't forget to ask for the blessing before ye went, now?" No sound came; but the boy's lips framed a silent "No." In another moment his eyes were drooping sleepily.