“John,” she said at last, when the sobbing had ceased, “You say this Lily was good.  Do you mean she was a Christian, like Charlie?”

“Yes, if there ever was one.  Why, she used to make a villain like me kneel with her every night, and say the Lord’s Prayer.”

For an instant, a puzzling thought crossed Anna’s brain as to the circumstances which could have brought her brother every night to Lily’s side, but it passed away immediately as she rejoined: 

“Then she is safe in heaven, and there are no tears there.  We’ll try to meet her some day.  You could not help her dying.  She might have died had she been your wife, so I’d try to think it happened for the best, and you’ll soon get to believing it did.  That’s my experience.  You are young yet, and life has much in store for you.  You’ll find some one to fill Lily’s place; some one whom we shall all think worthy of you, and we’ll be so happy together.”

She did not speak of Alice Johnson, but she thought of her.  John, too, thought of Alice Johnson, wondering how she would look to him who might have married the daughter of a count.  He had not told Anna of this, and he was about preparing to leave her, when, changing the conversation, she said: 

“Did we ever write to you—­no, we didn’t—­about that mysterious stranger, that man who stopped for a day or two at the hotel, nearly two years ago, and made so many inquiries about us and our place, pretending he wanted to buy it in exchange for city property, and that some one had told him it was for sale?”

“What man?  Who was he?” John asked; and Anna replied: 

“He called himself Bronson.”

“Describe him,” John said, settling back so that his face was partly concealed in the shadow.

“Rather tall, firmly-knit figure, with what I imagine people mean when they say a bullet-head, that is, a round, hard head, with keen gray eyes, sandy mustache, and a scar or something on his right temple.  Are you cold?” and she turned quickly to her brother, who had shuddered involuntarily at her description, for well he knew now who that man was.

But why had he come there?  This John did not know, and as it was necessary to appear natural, he answered to Anna’s inquiry, that he thought he had taken cold, as the cars were badly warmed.

“But, go on; tell me more of this Bronson.  He heard our house was for sale.  How, pray?”

“From some one in New York; and the landlord suggested it might have been you.”

“It’s false.  I never told him so,” and John spoke savagely.

“Then you did know him?  What was he?  We were half afraid of him, he behaved so strangely,” Anna said, looking wonderingly at her brother, whose face alternately flushed and then grew pale.

Simple little Anna, how John blessed her in his heart for possessing so little insight into the genuine springs of his character, for when he answered: