Glencaid, like most mining towns of its class, was dull and dead enough during the hours of daylight.  It was not until after darkness fell that it awoke from its somnolence, when the scattered miners came swarming down from out the surrounding hills and turned into a noisy, restless playground the single narrow, irregular street.  Then it suddenly became a mad commixture of Babel and hell.  At this hour nothing living moved within range of the watcher’s vision except a vagrant dog; the heat haze hung along the near-by slopes, while a little spiral of dust rose lazily from the deserted road.  But Hampton had no eyes for this dreary prospect; with contracted brows he was viewing again that which he had confidently believed to have been buried long ago.  Finally, he stepped quickly across the little room, and, standing quietly within the open doorway, looked long at the young girl upon the bed.  She lay in sound, motionless sleep, one hand beneath her cheek, her heavy hair, scarcely revealing its auburn hue in the gloom of the interior, flowing in wild disorder across the crushed pillow.  He stepped to the single window and drew down the green shade, gazed at her again, a new look of tenderness softening his stern face, then went softly out and closed the door.

An hour later he was still sitting on the hard chair by the window, a cigar between his teeth, thinking.  The lowering sun was pouring a perfect flood of gold across the rag carpet, but he remained utterly unconscious as to aught save the gloomy trend of his own awakened memories.  Some one rapped upon the outer door.

“Come in,” he exclaimed, carelessly, and barely glancing up.  “Well, what is it this time, Mrs. Guffy?”

The landlady had never before seen this usually happy guest in his present mood, and she watched him curiously.

“A man wants ter see ye,” she announced, shortly, her hand on the knob.

“Oh, I’m in no shape for play to-night; go back and tell him so.”

“Sure, an’ it’s aisy ’nough ter see thet wid half an eye.  But this un isn’t thet koind of a man, an’ he’s so moighty perlite about it Oi jist cud n’t sind the loikes of him away.  It’s ’Missus Guffy, me dear madam, wud ye be koind enough to convey me complimints to Misther Robert Hampton, and requist him to grant me a few minutes of his toime on an important matter?’ Sure, an’ what do ye think of thet?”

“Huh! one of those fellows who had these rooms?” and Hampton rose to his feet with animation.

The landlady lowered her voice to an almost inaudible whisper.

“It’s the Reverend Howard Wynkoop,” she announced, impressively, dwelling upon the name.  “The Reverend Howard Wynkoop, the Prasbytarian Missionary—­wouldn’t thet cork ye?”

It evidently did, for Mr. Hampton stared at her for fully a minute in an amazement too profound for fit expression in words.  Then he swallowed something in his throat.