“No, Anna.”

“Did you tell him what the doctors have said about his health?”

“No; there was bad news enough without that for one day.  And then happiness might bring back health to him.  The trouble that threatens him will have to be put down as one of the consequences of all that has occurred to him—­as part of what he is and of what he has done.  The origin of disease may lie in our troubles—­our nervous shocks, our remorses, and better strivings.”

The supper hour came.

“I do not wish any supper, Anna.”

“Nor I. How long they stay together!”

“They have a great deal to say to each other, Anna.”

“I know, I know.  Poor children!”

“I believe he is only twenty-five.”

“When Isabel comes up, do you think I ought to go to her room and see whether she wants anything?”

“No, Anna.”

“And she must not know that we have been sitting up, as though we felt sorry for them and could not go on with our own work.”

“I met Marguerite and Barbee this afternoon walking together.  I suppose she will come back to him at last.  But she has had her storm, and he knows it, and he knows there will never be any storm for him.  She is another one of those girls of mine—­not sad, but with half the sun shining on them.  But half a sun shining steadily, as it will always shine on her, is a great deal.”

“Hush!” said Miss Anna, in a whisper, “he is gone!  Isabel is coming up the steps.”

They heard her and then they did not hear her, and then again and then not again.

Miss Anna started up: 

“She needs me!”

He held her back: 

“No, Anna!  Not to help is to help.”

X

One afternoon late in the autumn of the following year, when a waiting stillness lay on the land and shimmering sunlight opened up the lonely spaces of woods and fields, the Reaper who comes to all men and reaps what they have sown, approached the home of the Merediths and announced his arrival to the young master of the house:  he would await his pleasure.

Rowan had been sitting up, propped by his pillows.  It was the room of his grandfather as it had been that of the man preceding; the bed had been their bed; and the first to place it where it stood may have had in mind a large window, through which as he woke from his nightly sleep he might look far out upon the land, upon rolling stately acres.

Rowan looked out now:  past the evergreens just outside to the shining lawn beyond; and farther away, upon fields of brown shocks—­guiltless harvest; then toward a pasture on the horizon.  He could see his cattle winding slowly along the edge of a russet woodland on which the slanting sunlight fell.  Against the blue sky in the silvery air a few crows were flying:  all went in the same direction but each went without companions.  He watched their wings curiously with lonely, following eyes.  Whither home passed they?  And by whose summons?  And with what guidance?