Thomas, coming back from market that night, had found his wife unconscious and helpless, and when at last she had recovered her senses it was long before she could speak and explain something of the terrible happenings of that afternoon; and even now, at the end of two years, her speech was still thick and slow, and her limbs on one side partially helpless.

Thomas spread the cloth on the table, and placed the china on it for her to arrange.  The old man waited on his wife like a mother on her child, and nothing could exceed his patient devotion.  With her he was always bright and cheery, and only his bowed back and snow-white hair and altogether aged appearance told of his own consuming grief and anxiety.

He cut the bread and butter, and made the tea with all the deftness of a woman.  Patience watched him with the tears smarting behind her lids.  When he had filled their cups he sat down, facing the window, and looking out along the garden to the little gate.  They did not talk much.  Thomas’s mind had gone back to that morning when he had looked out and seen Daniel Magor at the gate with letters in his hand—­that wonderful letter which had so altered and beautified their existence for a time, only to blight them both cruelly.

“I believe it’s Miss Grace I see coming in,” he said presently, rousing with a start.  “She’s at the gate, and—­yes, she’s unfastening it.  I’ll go and meet her.”

On his way through the garden he saw a cat lazily basking on his best wall-flower seedlings, and drove her away; the excitement of it prevented his noticing the expression of Miss Grace’s face, the anxious, excited look in her eyes.

“Good-evening, Mr. Dawson,” she said, as she came close.  “I was at the post office getting my letters, and there was one lying there for you, so I said I would bring it, as it was marked ‘Urgent.’  It seemed wrong to leave it there until to-morrow, I thought it might be important.”

She handed him the envelope, but she did not turn and go.  “I think I’ll step in and speak to Mrs. Dawson for a moment or so,” she said quietly, “just while you look at your letter, then I’ll go, that you may talk it over with her.”

She felt that her little scheme was rather a clumsy one, but she had a strong conviction that it might be well for her to be there just then.  “I will go inside,” and she left him standing there in the autumn sunlight staring at the letter he held in his trembling hands.  He turned it over several times before he would make up his mind to open it.  There was always a dread overshadowing him in those days of what he might have to hear.

Miss Grace had barely got through her first greetings, and declined Patience’s offer of a cup of tea “fresh-made,” when the door was flung open and Thomas almost fell in.  In trouble he would have remembered his wife’s affliction, and have hedged her round with every care, but joy was another thing.  It was on joy that he had built his hopes of restoring her to her former self—­and here it was, in his grasp!