"And when he knew his friends again, Darby had been buried a long time. Joan did not know whether a broken neck is so much worse than anything else in the world. He hadn't any curiosity about the mill--he didn't care to hear the details of how they burned it to the ground. Perhaps after a while he will be too tired to contradict ignorant people. But he thinks--he has said, that when a man has not slept five hours in a week, nor spoken for days together without agony, much may be forgiven him in the line of intolerance of other people's ignorance--a blessed ignorance gentlemen, a blessed ignorance." The door closed behind him and the men drew a long breath. No one turned out the gas and it burned till morning, for they took their keys in silence and went upstairs, for the most part arm in arm, haunted by the hoarse, rough voice of the stranger, whom they never saw again. And indeed they did not care to see him. "For what could one say?" as young Sanford demanded, the next day. "It either happened, or it didn't. If it didn't, he can say no more; if it did, then he is right, and we are in blessed ignorance." And no one of the circle but nodded and looked for a moment at the chair behind the stove. THE TWILIGHT GUESTS When they left him, in the warm, late afternoon, lying listless on his couch in the porch, they thought he would stay alone there till they came again. His little granddaughter, indeed, felt so sad at deserting him that she ran back and kissed him twice. "To leave Grandpapa alone!" she said. But he was not alone; there came to him strange guests and sweet. And this was the manner of their coming. As he watched the shadow creeping up the steps, he thought how often he had marked the time by it in the far away days. He remembered how he had tried to keep in the broad sunbeam that lay along the walk, when he used to run home to supper tired and hungry, shouting to his mother that his school was over and out and that he had come--"So hungry, mother dear!" And as he thought of her, slow tears crept from under his old eyelids, and he raised his hand feebly to wipe them away. When he saw clearly again, he started slightly, for up the path, walking in the sunbeam, came a boy. He smiled sweetly, cheerily at the old man, and sat down confidingly, close to the couch. "It is so warm in the sun!" he said. The old man turned uneasily and looked at him. "Are you Arthur's son?" he asked doubtfully. "My eyes are so dim--I cannot always tell you apart, at first. Are you Arthur's son?" "No," said the child.