“May I come in?  I will only keep you a few minutes.”

She came forward and gave him her hand.  The door shut behind him.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“I think not.  You must be very busy.  I only came to say a few words.  Miss Mallory!”

He still held her hand.  Diana trembled, and looked up.

“—­I fear you may have thought me harsh. I blame myself in many respects.  Will you forgive me?  Mrs. Roughsedge has told me what you wished her to tell me.  Before you go, will you still let me give you Christ’s message?”

The tears rushed back to Diana’s eyes; she looked at him silently.

“‘Blessed are they that mourn,’” he said, gently, with a tender dignity, “‘for they shall be comforted!’”

Their eyes met.  From the man’s face and manner everything had dropped but the passion of Christian charity, mingled with a touch of remorse—­as though, in what had been revealed to him, the servant had realized some mysterious rebuke of his Lord.

“Remember that!” he went on.  “Your mourning is your blessing.  God’s love will come to you through it—­and the sense of fellowship with Christ.  Don’t cast it from you—­don’t put it away.”

“I know,” she said, brokenly.  “It is agony, but it is sacred.”

His eyes grew dim.  She withdrew her hand, and they talked a little about her journey.

“But you will come back,” he said to her, presently, with earnestness; “your friends here will think it an honor and a privilege to welcome you.”

“Oh yes, I shall come back.  Unless—­I have some friends in London—­East London.  Perhaps I might work there.”

He shook his head.

“No, you are not strong enough.  Come back here.  There is God’s work to be done in this village, Miss Mallory.  Come and put your hand to it.  But not yet—­not yet.”

Then her weariness told him that he had said enough, and he went.

* * * * *

Late that night Diana tore herself from Muriel Colwood, went alone to her room, and locked her door.  Then she drew back the curtains, and gazed once more on the same line of hills she had seen rise out of the wintry mists on Christmas morning.  The moon was still behind the down, and a few stars showed among the clouds.

She turned away, unlocked a drawer, and, falling upon her knees by the bed, she spread out before her the fragile and time-stained paper that held her mother’s last words to her.

“MY LITTLE DIANA—­my precious child,—­It may be—­it will be—­years before this reaches you.  I have made your father promise to let you grow up without any knowledge or reminder of me.  It was difficult, but at last—­he promised.  Yet there must come a time when it will hurt you to think of your mother.  When it does—­listen, my darling.  Your father knows that I loved him always!  He knows—­and he has forgiven.  He knows