"I locked the door and threw the key down the well--that night!" she answered slowly. "I don't suppose you can quite understand, if you are not afflicted with a passionate temper, as I was. When my son--when Fairfax here--had gone, and I was shutting up the house and came to his room,--I wanted to go in,--oh, you cannot know how I wanted to go in! But I knew that if I once entered and stood among his dear belongings, I should relent-- I should rush away to find him and beg him to come back to me. And I--I did not _want_ to relent! I stood there five minutes debating it. Then I suddenly locked the door on the outside, and before giving myself time for a second thought, I rushed down-stairs, out of doors, and threw the key into the old well,--where I could never get it again! "Children, I am an old woman. I shall be seventy-five next birthday. Will you heed a lesson I have learned and paid for with the bitterest years of my life? If you are blessed with a calm, even, forgiving nature, thank God for it always. But if you are as I was, pray daily for help to curb that nature, before you have allowed it to work some desperate evil!" She hid her face in her hands. "There, there, little Mother of mine!" murmured her son. "Let us forget all that now! What does anything matter so long as we are together again--for always?" He leaned over, pulled her hands from her face, and kissed her tenderly. The moment was an awkward one, and Cynthia wished madly that she had not been prompted to ask that unfortunate question. Suddenly, however, the tension was broken by Mrs. Collingwood exclaiming: "Mercy me! See that enormous _cat_ walking in! Wherever did it come from?" They all turned toward the door. "Oh, that's Goliath!" said Joyce, calmly. "He feels very much at home here, for he has come in with us often. He led the way that first day, if you remember. And he's been _such_ a help!-- He's a better detective than any of us!" "Blessings on Goliath then, say I!" laughed Mr. Fairfax Collingwood, and, approaching the huge feline with coaxing words, he gathered its unresisting form in his arms and deposited the warm, furry purring beast in his mother's lap. And while they were all laughing over and petting Goliath, a queer thing happened. The candles, which had been burning now for several hours, had, unnoticed by all, been gradually guttering and spluttering out. At length only four or five flames remained, feebly wavering in their pools of melted wax. The occupants of the room had been too absorbed with their own affairs to notice the gradual dimming of the illumination. But now Joyce suddenly looked up and perceived what had happened.