"I wouldn't put it beyond him, not a mite," Mrs. Fay had confessed, with tragic matter-of-fact; "not after the way he's talked, I wouldn't, and Matt don't, either."

"Has your son said so?"

"He's said worse. He's said that if he didn't do it, he ought to have.

That's the way he talks. Oh, he's no comfort to me! I knew he wouldn't be, after that awful place, but I didn't look for him to be quite what he is, wanting to kill and blow up everything. An I. I. A. is what he calls himself, and the Lord only knows what that is. I blame myself,"

she went on, with dry, unrelenting statement of the case. "I didn't bring them up right. I was discontented--"

"Oh, but there's a discontent that's divine," Lois broke in, consolingly.

"Well, this wasn't it. It was 'hateful and hating one another,' as Paul says. I put it into their heads--I mean Fay's and the children's. Matt'd commit murder now as quick as a kitten'll lap milk--or he says he would; and as for Fay--"

Lois interrupted, hurriedly, "We shouldn't do him the injustice of condemning him in advance, should we?"

The woman held herself erect, her hard, uncompromising eyes, in which there was nevertheless an odd suffusion of softness, looking straight over her companion's head. "I can't help what I know."

"And _I_ can't help what _I_ know, which is that you and I have nothing to do with judgment, still less with condemnation. There are others to attend to that, while we try to bring"--she uttered the word with diffidence--"try to bring love."

"Oh, love!" The tone was that of one who had long ago given up anything so illusory.

"Then whatever we can find that will take the place of love," Lois replied, with relief at getting back to ground of which she was more sure. "Let us call it good will."

Good will was, in fact, what Reuben Hilary had called it, and it was from him she was quoting. Having gone to him for the a.n.a.lysis of her own state of mind, she had been comforted to learn that she placed no impediment in the way of public justice through being privately merciful.

"The mission of Christ, me dear Mrs. Thor, was salvation. And what do we mean by salvation? Isn't it the state of being saved? And what do we want to be saved from? Isn't it from trouble and evil of all kinds? And where and when do we want to be saved from them? Isn't it right here and right now? And who are the people that need most to be saved? Isn't it those that are threatened with danger? And who is to save them? Isn't it you and I? What more do you ask?"

"So that when it comes to justice--"

"Ah, now, I'm not botherin' about justice. Justice has her sword and her scales. Let her look after her own affairs. What you and I are out after is good will."

So Lois got further light upon her way and followed it. She followed it the more easily because her father-in-law seemed willing to follow it, too. He could do this with a touching grace since more fully than by letter she a.s.sured him that Claude had come back to redeem his word.

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" Ena had exclaimed, on hearing this information emphasized. "The darling boy was always the soul of honor."

An ethereal vision in black, she was having a cup of tea in the library before going up-stairs to take off her traveling-dress. Thor, who had met the party at the dock, had accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby to their own house, so that Lois was able to get a few words with the sorrowing parents alone, giving them in fuller detail that which her letters had only sketched. She had a.s.sumed the privilege of the daughter of the house to sit at the tea-table, while for the minute the returned voyagers took their place as guests.

There were reasons now why Archie was able to echo his wife's rejoicing in Claude's change of heart. In this new turn to the situation, which he had but imperfectly seized from what had been written, he could get the same kind of consolation that a father draws from the death of a son in a war with which he has no sympathy. It was the death of a brave man, when all was said and done. It was also death in conditions that made his own position the stronger, since it was an aid to the clearing of his conscience. It detracted nothing from his grief that he should use Claude's yearning for redemption as a fresh proof that Jasper Fay had not even a shadowy motive for revenge; and with the elimination of Fay's motive for revenge, he, Archie Masterman, was more amply acquitted at the bar before which the hereditary Masterman impulse summoned him. Lois had the greater confidence, therefore, in making her appeals.

"If they do imprison him, you see, the family will be left without means. One of these days I think Rosie will marry Jim Breen--"

Ena gave a little cry of disapproval. "What? After _Claude_!"

"Oh, it won't be for a long time yet; and while this trouble is hanging over her father she won't listen to any suggestion of the kind, little as she would before. Still--in the end--it will be only natural--" She left Rosie there. "And Thor's been so good about the son--only--well, the I. I. A., whatever that is, have got hold of him, so that we can't count on him to do anything for the poor mother, if she's left alone, or for Rosie--"

"I'll take care of them." It was probable that Archie Masterman had never in his life said anything that gave him so complete a satisfaction. Before Lois could respond to his generosity he went on to add: "I needn't appear in the matter. I'll leave it to your ingenuity to find the way to take care of them without mentioning me at all--unless you think it would be a comfort to them, as a sign of my confidence in poor old Fay. _That_ I should like to have generally known--that I absolve him entirely."

By sheer force of will Lois refused to see him as sacrificing to the hoodoo or the voodoo of which her mother's letters had apprised her. If she had nothing to do with condemnation in the case of Jasper Fay, she had nothing to do with it, she reminded herself, in that of Archie Masterman. Her part in life was to accept every one at his nominal face value, for only so could she put good will into effective operation.

Tea was over and they were on their feet when she felt her own need demanding consideration. It was not without nervousness that she said, "You know Thor has been staying here with Cousin Amy and Uncle Sim."

"So we understood."

"Well, I think he might like to stay a little longer."

"That's not necessary on our account," Masterman said, promptly.

"It wouldn't be on your account, but on his own. That is," she explained, "he might think it was on your account, but in reality to feel that he was comforting you would be a comfort to him."

Claude's mother gave way to the first little sob since entering the house, while the father's face settled to the stoniness that masked his suffering. "Wouldn't it look very queer?" was all he said. "People might not understand it."

"Oh, they haven't understood it as it is; but does that matter? I know there's been talk in the village during the past few weeks, but surely we're in a position to ignore it." In the hope of opening up the way for Thor in what he had to make clear, she decided to go further. While speaking she kept her eyes on Masterman. "You may not need him, but he may need you. As a matter of fact, he has still something to explain to you which I may as well tell you now. On that night--the night of the ninth of July--Thor and Claude were here in the house together. There was trouble between them."

Mrs. Masterman gasped; her husband breathed hard, saying, merely, "Go on."

"I don't know what the quarrel was exactly, but--but--there were blows."

"Not the blow--?" Masterman began, with horror in his tone.

"Oh no, not that," Lois interposed, hastily, going on to explain briefly the incidents of the struggle between the brothers, as far as she knew them. "That part of it was all over," she continued, eagerly, before either of the parents could comment on this new phase of the event.

"Claude wasn't much hurt. You can see that from the way he was able to get up and come out into the air while Thor was running up to our house for brandy. If there hadn't been some one lurking in the shrubbery--"

"He's been a terrible son to me," Masterman broke in, wrathfully. "When it isn't in one way it's in another. What have I done to deserve--?"

"He _is_ terrible," Lois admitted, soothingly; "but, oh, Mr. Masterman, he's terrible in such splendid ways! He hasn't found himself yet; but he will if you'll give him time. Whatever he's done wrong he'll atone for n.o.bly. You'll see!"

The mother's intervention came to Lois as a new surprise. "Whatever he's done wrong he's sorry for. We can be sure of that." She turned to her husband. "Archie, Claude was my son; and I want to tell you now, before we go any further, that no matter what happened between Thor and him, I forgive it, if there's anything to forgive."

"I know Thor feels there was something to forgive," Lois confessed on her husband's behalf, "whether there was or not."

"Then tell him to come to me," Ena commanded, in a tone such as Lois had never heard from her.

"I'll tell him to go to you, if you'll ask him to stay here with you a little longer."

"I sha'n't ask him; Archie will, won't you, Archie?" She laid her hand on his arm, pleadingly. "If you do, it will mean that you and I are not trying to judge our two boys, or take sides between them"--she gave a little sob--"now when it's no use. They quarreled, as brothers will, but they were fond of each other, for all that."

"Thor adored Claude," Lois said, simply. "I think he cared for him more than for any one in the world that--that I know of."

Masterman wheeled suddenly and walked away, while his wife made signs to Lois that they had won.

But it was in another frame of mind that Thor's wife said to herself, as she saw him coming toward her along County Street: "Now I shall see! I shall see if he will!"

She meant that now he might return to her, that he might return as a matter of course. If he came of his own accord, something within her would leap to greet him. So much she knew; but beyond it she would not trust herself to go. "I shall see if he will!" she repeated, with emphasis, throwing the responsibility of taking the first step on him.

It was on him, she felt, that it lay. She had asked him to leave her until she was prepared to call him back, and she was not prepared. If he were to ask to be taken back, her att.i.tude could lawfully be different.

Since it was he who had made void the union she had supposed to be based on love, it was for him to suggest another built on whatever they could find as a subst.i.tute. Great as her pity for him was, she could not by so much as a glance or a smile relieve him from that necessity.

As they drew near each other she recognized the minute as one that would be decisive, if not for the rest of life, yet for a long time to come.

She could look ahead and select the very tree under which they would meet. As a result of the few words that would be then exchanged their lives would blend again--or he would go to the one house and she to the other, and they would be further apart than they had ever been before.

He might not think it or see it, because men were so dense; but she would be as quick to read the signs of which he would remain unconscious as a bird to scent a storm.

For this very reason she reduced her manner, when they came face to face, to the simplest and most casual. It was a matter of pride with her to exert no influence, to leave him free. Not that she found it necessary to take pains, for she saw from the first minutes of encounter that his mind was far away from that part of their interests which she put first. Into her comments on the wonderful courage displayed by Mr.