They all slipped through the following days as people do who realize that troubles do not come to them, but are overtaken on the way. They seemed always to have been there; some people pass on the other side, but if one's path lies close, then one must go with what courage possible--look hard, feel and groan with the understanding, and pass on as best he can bearing the memory with him. Father Noble came from many miles back in the hills. Riding his sturdy little horse, his loose black cloak floating like benignant wings bearing him on; his radiant old face shining even in the face of death. He stayed until the wound in the hillside was covered over Meredith's little form; stayed to see the flowers hide the scar, murmuring again and again: "In the hope of joyful resurrection." His was the task to bridge life and death, and there was no doubt in his beautiful soul. "And now," he said, after four days, "I must go to Cleaver's Clearing"--the Clearing was twenty hard miles away. "There are children there who never heard of God until I took some toys to them last Christmas. Then they thought that I was God. They are sick now, poor children--bad food; no care--ah! well, they will learn, they will learn." And the old man rode away. And still Doris had not seen Meredith's child. "I cannot, Sister," she had pleaded. "I can think of it only as George Thornton's child." The hate in Doris's heart was so new and appalling a sensation that it frightened her. She tried to think of the unseen child with the love that she felt for all children--but that one! She struggled to overcome the sickening aversion that grew, instead of lessened, while the days dragged on. But always the helpless child represented nothing but passion, brutality, suffering, and disgrace. It was _not_ a child, a piteous, pleading child--it was the essence of Wrong made visible. Sister Angela was deeply concerned. The unnatural attitude called forth her old manner of authority. Sitting alone with Doris before the fire in the living room the evening of Meredith's funeral and Father Noble's departure she grew stern and commanding. "This will never do, my dear," she said. "It cannot be that life has made of you a cruel, unjust woman." Doris dropped her eyes--they were wonderful eyes, her real and only claim to beauty. Dusky eyes they were, with a light in them of amber. "How much did Merry tell you?" she asked, faintly, for the older woman looked so frail and pure that it seemed impossible that she knew the worst. "My dear, she told me--nothing. Her letter said that she wanted to tell me things--things that she could not tell to God"--Angela unconsciously touched her cross--"but there was no time. No time." "There are things that women cannot tell to God, Sister. Things that they can only tell to some women!"