Agatha listened intently, and a growing resolution shone in her eyes.

“Would Mrs. Stoddard come, if it were not for what you said—­about me?” she asked.

“The Lord only knows, but I think she would,” replied the poor, harassed doctor.  “She’s always been a regular Dorcas in this neighborhood.”

“Dorcas!” cried Agatha, her anger again flaring up.  “I should say Sapphira.”

“Oh, now, Susan isn’t so bad, when you once know her,” urged the doctor.

Agatha got up and went to the window, trailing her traveling rug after her.  “She shall come—­I’ll bring her.  And sometime she shall mend her words about me—­but that can wait.  If she will only help to save James Hambleton’s life now!  Where does she live?” Suddenly, as she stood at the window, she saw her opportunity.  “There’s Little Simon down there now under the trees; and his buggy must be somewhere near.  Will you stay here, Doctor Thayer, with Mr. Hambleton, while I go to see your sister?”

“Hadn’t I better drive you over to see Susan myself?” feebly suggested the doctor.

“No, I’ll go alone.”  There was anger, determination, gunpowder in Agatha’s voice.

“But mind you, don’t offer her any money,” the doctor warned, as he watched her go down the hall and disappear for an instant in the bedroom where James Hambleton lay.  She came out almost immediately and without a word descended the wide stairway, opened the dining-room door, and called softly to Sallie Kingsbury.

Doctor Thayer returned to the sick-room.  Ten minutes later he heard the wheels of Little Simon’s buggy rolling rapidly up the road in the direction of Susan Stoddard’s place.

CHAPTER XIV

SUSAN STODDARD’S PRAYER

There was a wide porch, spotlessly scrubbed, along the front of the house, and two hydrangeas blooming gorgeously in tubs, one on either side of the walk.  The house looked new and modern, shiny with paint and furnished with all the conveniences offered by the relentless progress of our day.

Little Simon had informed Agatha, during their short drive, that Deacon Stoddard had achieved this “residence” shortly before his death; and his tone implied that it was the pride of the town, its real treasure.  Even to Agatha’s absorbed and preoccupied mind it presented a striking contrast to the old red house, which had received her so graciously into its spacious comfort.  She marveled that anything so fresh and modish as the house before her could have come into being in the old town.  It was next to a certainty that there was a model laundry with set tubs beyond the kitchen, and equally sure that no old horsehair lounge subtly invited the wearied traveler to rest.

A cool draft came through the screen door.  Within, it was cleaner than anything Agatha had ever seen.  The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone.  A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table.  The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of wiping her shoes on it.