The captain paced up and down the little shop nervously for a minute or two and then turned to the shoemaker. "I should like to see her," he said. "I have something to say that must be told her at once--something that should be told by a friend, lest she should hear it from any other lips. I should like to see her." Medmer Theed looked at him keenly; came nearer and laid a hand on his arm. "Are they seeking her?" he asked in a whisper. "Will they trouble her again?" The captain looked at him, doubtful what to say or how much to leave unsaid. "The man who has troubled her so long," he replied at last, "is dead, and will trouble her no more. But she must be told." There were a dignity and a firmness in his tones which mastered the more ignorant man; without a word he pushed open the inner door and motioned to the captain to enter. As the captain stepped through, the old shoemaker would have followed, but the captain gently signed to him to keep back, and closed the door and was left in the room alone with 'Linda. She was still sleeping, and he set the light he carried on a little table near the bed, and quite simply and noiselessly went upon his knees and bowed his head in his hands and muttered a little prayer to himself. "God of the little children," he breathed, "who hast sent back to me this child whom I loved in my old age, teach me, in thy infinite mercy, how best to tell her, out of a heart that loves her, what her sorrow is; teach me how best to comfort her." He rose from his knees and seated himself beside the bed, and laid a lean old hand on the white one which lay near it. She stirred softly in her sleep and opened her eyes and looked at him--looked at him for some moments without recognition. Then, slowly and without turning her gaze from him, she drew nearer until she had crept quite into his arms, until her face was hidden on his breast. And so for a long time they remained in silence. "Little one," he said at last, "you have not forgotten your old friend, you have not forgotten the old days. A long, long time has passed between, but in your hour of need you have crept back quite naturally to us to find a haven here. There, don't tremble; nothing shall harm you; nothing shall come near you. You were a child when I knew you before; dream that you are a child again." She clung to him, weeping. "Oh, that I might!" she whispered. "If I might go back and see with the clearer eyes I have now; if I might know what I know now and make atonement!" "The time must come when we all cry that, child," he said. "The time must surely come when the bravest and the best of us would be glad if we might begin again, seeing the way before us with clearer eyes. Listen: are you strong enough lying here in your old friend's arms--are you strong enough to hear what I shall say to you?" She looked up at him wonderingly and grasped his hand more closely, but he dared not look at her.