“It is good of you to come,” David began, “for I have been anxious to speak to you ever since we came back from up the brook.  You may go,” and he motioned Betty to the door.  “I wish to be alone for a while with Mr. Randall.”

He waited until the door had closed behind the girl, and then turned his eyes upon his visitor’s face.  Jasper noted the worry there, and at once connected it with his experience up the brook that afternoon.

“Has Betty told you?” and David laid his right hand gently upon Jasper’s arm.

“About the rolling log, and your narrow escape this afternoon?”

David nodded.

“Yes, she told me about it on our way here.  I am so thankful that you were not hurt.”

“I might have been killed!  It was nothing less than a miracle that I escaped.”

“It has shaken you up a great deal, so I see.  But you will be all right after a good night’s sleep.  Your nerves are somewhat unstrung now.”

“Perhaps so,” the old man mused.  “But I feel uneasy.  It may be the shock, as you suggest.  But there is something in my heart that I cannot explain.  I never had such a feeling before, and I thought that perhaps you could help me.”

“In what way?” Jasper asked, as David paused as if groping for the right words.

“It appears as if everything is about to slip away from me.  I seem to-night as if about to start on a long mysterious journey, and that I shall never return.  People call me crazy, and perhaps they have good reason for doing so.  You may think the same, and especially so now as you listen to my words.  But I cannot help this peculiar notion that possesses me and almost overwhelms me with strange forebodings.  It may be the outcome of a mind diseased, who knows?  My great concern, though, is in connection with the work at the falls.  I have the feeling that in some way I am necessary to its welfare.  I do not wish it to stop, and I want you to promise me to-night that if anything should happen to me that you will take my place, and be keenly interested in it.”

“I do not see how I can take your place, for that is not in my power.  But take a deep interest in all that goes on up there I certainly shall, and be as deeply interested in its progress as you have been.”

“Ah, you can never be interested in it as I am,” and David’s eyes glowed with the intensity of his old-time devotion.  “Can any one be as much interested in the growth and progress of a child as its parents?  My child is up there,” and he stretched out his arm toward the falls.  “For it I have longed and suffered.  It is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.  My heart’s blood is there.”

Jasper now felt certain that the old man’s mind was really unbalanced.  He attributed it to the excitement of his narrow escape that afternoon.  A good sleep would refresh him, and he would be all right in the morning.  He rose to his feet and took David’s hand in his.