“Do you know what I’d do if it was my girl you were after?” she asked, pausing in her work and fixing her eyes on him.

“Something very unpleasant, I should say, by the tone of your voice—­ and, by the way, you are pointing your potato knife at me—­”

Mrs. Corbett with an effort controlled her temper.

“I believe, Mrs. Corbett, you would do me bodily injury.  What a horrible thought, and you a former officer in the Salvation Army!” Rance was smiling again and enjoying the situation.  “What a thrilling headline it would make for the Brandon Sun:  ’The Black Creek Stopping-House scene of a brutal murder.  Innocent young man struck down in his youth and beauty.’  You make me shudder, Mrs. Corbett, but you look superb when you rage like that; really, you women interest me a great deal.  I am so fond of all of you!”

“You’re a divil, Rance!” Mrs. Corbett repeated again.  “But you ain’t goin’ to do that blessed girl any harm—­she’s goin’ to be saved from you some way.”

“Who’ll do it, I wonder?” Rance seemed to triumph over her.

“There is One,” said Maggie Corbett, solemnly, “who comes to help when all other help fails.”

“Who’s that?” he asked, yawning.

Maggie Corbett held up her right hand.

“It is God!” she said slowly.  Rance laughed indulgently.  “A myth—­a name—­a superstition,” he sneered; “there is no God any more.”

“There is a God,” she said, slowly and reverently, for she was Maggie Murphy now, back to the Army days when God walked with her day by day, “and He can hear a mother’s prayer, and though I was never a mother after the flesh, I am a mother now to that poor girl in the place of the one that’s gone, and I’m askin’ Him to save her, and I’ve got me answer.  He will do it.”

There was a gleam in her eyes and a white glow in her face that made Rance Belmont for one brief moment tremble, but he lighted another cigarette and with a bow of exaggerated politeness left the room.

The days that followed were anxious ones for Mrs. Corbett.  Many stoppers sat at her table as the Christmas season drew near, and many times she heard allusions to her young neighbor which filled her with apprehension.  She had carefully counted the days that it would take her letter to reach its destination, and although there had been time for a reply, none came.

CHAPTER VIII.

SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT.

It was a wind-swept, chilly morning in late November, and Evelyn Brydon, alone in the silent little house, stood at the window looking listlessly at the dull gray monochrome which stretched before her.

The unaccustomed housework had roughened and chapped her hands, and the many failures in her cooking experiments, in spite of Mrs, Corbett’s instructions, had left her tired and depressed, for a failure is always depressing, even if it is only in the construction of the things which perish.