“It’s now on the table,” said Mrs. Vaughn.

“I’ve news for you,” said Polly, as they were sitting down.  “Tunk has reformed.”

“He must have been busy,” said Trove, “and he’s ruined his epitaph.”

“His epitaph?”

“Yes; that one Darrel wrote for him:  ’Here lies Tunk.  O Grave! where is thy victory?’”

“Tunk has one merit:  he never deceived any one but himself,” said the widow.

“Horses have run away with him,” Trove continued.  “His character is like a broken buggy; and his imagination—­that’s the unbroken colt.  Every day, for a long time, the colt has run away with the wagon, tipping it over and dragging it in the ditch, until every bolt is loose, and every spoke rattling, and every wheel awry.  I do hope he’s repaired his ‘ex.’”

“He walks better and complains less,” the widow answered.

“Often he stands very straight and walks like you,” said Polly, laughing.

“He thinks you are the only great man,” so spoke the widow.

“Gone from one illusion to another,” said Trove.  “It’s a lesson; every one should go softly.  Tom, will you now describe the melancholy feat of Theophilus Thistleton?”

The fable was quickly repeated.

“That Mr. Thistleton was a foolish fellow, and there’s many like him,” said Trove.  “He had better have been thrusting blueberries into his mouth.  I declare!” he added, sitting back with a look of surprise, “I’m happy again.”

“And we are going to keep you so,” Polly answered with decision.

“Darrel would tell me that I am at last in harmony with a great law which, until now, I have been defying.  It is true; I have thought too much of my own desires.”

“I do not understand you,” said Polly.  “Now, we heard of the shot and iron—­how you came by them and how, one night, you threw them into the river at Hillsborough.  That led, perhaps, to most of your trouble.  I’d like to know what moral law you were breaking when you flung them into the river?”

“A great law,” Trove answered; “but one hard to phrase.”

“Suppose you try.”

“The innocent shall have no fear,” said he.  “Until then I had kept the commandment.”

There was a little time of silence.

“If you watch a coward, you’ll see a most unhappy creature.”  It was Trove who spoke.  “Darrel said once, ’A coward is the prey of all evil and the mark of thunderbolts.’”

“I’ll not admit you’re a coward,” were the words of Polly.

“Well,” said he, rising, “I had fear of only one thing,—­that I should lose your love.”

Reaching home next day, Trove found that Allen had sold Phyllis.  The mare had been shipped away.

“She brought a thousand dollars,” said his foster father, “and I’ll divide the profit with you.”

The young man was now able to pay his debt to Polly, but for the first time he had a sense of guilt.