“Oh, Mrs. Waldo, you make me feel what it is to have no mother,” sobbed Miss Lou.

“Well, my dear, that’s your heavy cross.  Sooner or later, in some form, a cross burdens every human soul, too often many crosses.  All I ask of you is not to try to bear them alone.  See how faith changed everything for Captain Hanfield in his extremity.  He is now in the better home, waiting for his dear ones.”

“I can never forget what faith has done for you and your son, Mrs. Waldo.  Surgeon Ackley said that your son’s absolute quiet and cheerfulness of mind during the first critical days saved his life.”

“Yes, I know that,” Mrs. Waldo replied with her low, sweet laugh.  “Faith is often more useful in helping us to live than in preparing us to die.  It saved my life, too, I’m sure, after my husband died.  I had no right to die then, for Vincent and, far more, my daughters, still needed me.”

For a time they sat on the piazza steps in silence, the old lady keeping her arm caressingly about the girl, whose head drooped on the motherly bosom overflowing with sympathy.  Only the semi-tropical sounds of night broke the stillness.  The darkness was relieved by occasional flashes along the horizon from a distant thunder-shower.  Miss Lou thought, “Have I ever known a peace so deep and sweet as this?”

There was a hasty, yet stealthy step along the hall to the door, yet the girl had no presentiment of evil.  The warm, brooding, fragrant darkness of the night was not more undisturbed than her mind.

“Miss Lou,” said Zany in a loud whisper.

What a shock came with that brief utterance!  A flash of lightning direct from the sky could not have produced such sudden dread and presentiment of trouble.  Truly, a woman listens more with her heart than her ears, and even in Zany’s whisper there was detected a note of tragedy.

After an instant Miss Lou faltered, “What is it, Zany?”

“Ef you gwine ter yo’ room soon I des he’p you undress.”

How well the girl knew that the faithful slave meant other and less prosaic help!  She rose at once, kissed Mrs. Waldo good-night and excused herself.  When Zany had lighted the candle her scared, troubled face revealed at once that she had tidings of dire import.

Miss Lou seized the girl with a grip which hurt her arm, demanding, “Have you heard anything about—­about Lieutenant Scoville?”

“Now, Miss Lou, you gotter be brabe en not look at me dat away.  Kaze ef you does, w’at I gwine ter do?  I kyant stan’ it nohow.”

“Oh! oh!” Miss Lou gasped, “wait a moment, not yet—­wait.  I must get breath.  I know, I know what’s coming.  Chunk is back and—­and—­O God, I can’t bear it, I cannot, I cannot!”