"No, suh," came a murmur from the shadow on the floor, "I'm a-goin to take care of 'em fine. Yes, suh, I'll chop their eggs small; I sho'ly will." The dying hand began to wander over the coverlet; his son took it, but was fretfully repulsed; then Dr. Lavendar made a sign, and Simmons laid his thin old hand on it, and Benjamin Wright gave a contented sigh. After a while he opened that one eye again, and looked at Dr. Lavendar; "Isn't it cus-customary on such occasions, to--admonish?" he said, peevishly; "you ain't doing your duty by me, Lavendar." "You don't need admonition, Benjamin. You know what to do." Silence again, and after a while a broken murmur: "'I here forget... cancel all grudge, repeal thee...'" Then distinctly and quietly he said: "Sam, will you forgive me?" Samuel Wright nodded; he could not speak at first, and Simmons lifting his head, looked at him, fiercely; then he swallowed several times, and said, with ponderous dignity: "Certainly, father. Certainly." And Simmons fell back into the shadows. "Of course," murmured Benjamin Wright, "if I g-get well, it needn't hold, you know." After that he seemed to sleep a little, until, his eyes still closed, he said, "The boy slapped my face. So it's all right." Samuel started up from his chair at the bedside, shocked and protesting. "Gad-a-mercy!" said Benjamin Wright, fretfully, opening his eye and looking at him--"that makes us square! Don't you see?" There was a long silence. Once Dr. Lavendar spoke to him, and once William King touched his wrist, but he seemed to sleep. Then abruptly, and quite clearly, he spoke: "'Crito, I owe a cock to Aesculapius'.... Lavendar?" "Yes, Benjamin?" "The debt is paid. Hey? I got the receipt." "He is wandering," said Samuel. "Father, what do you want?" But he did not speak again. CHAPTER XXXII Helena had asked Dr. Lavendar to keep David, out of abject fear of William King. The doctor had granted her until Sunday to give him up without explanations; if she had not done so then, he must, he said doggedly, "tell." In sending the child to the Rectory she had not given him up; she had only declared a truce. She had tied Dr. King's hands and gained a breathing-space in which to decide what she must do; but she used to watch the hill road every morning, with scared eyes, lest he should stop on his way up to Benjamin Wright's to say that the truce was over. David came running joyously home two or three times, for more clothes, or to see the rabbits, or to hang about her neck and tell her of his journey. Upon one of these occasions, he mentioned casually that "Alice had gone travelling." Helena's heart stood still; then beat suffocatingly in her throat while she drew the story piecemeal from the child's lips. "She said," David babbled, "that he didn't know you. An' she said--"