He laid the volume gently down and turning, faced the younger man.

"Listen: In those licentious days the Moving Finger was writing a word for the future to reveal. It wrote BLIND in the eyes of your helpless child."

"My G.o.d! You don't mean it!"

"It is true. The cornea is destroyed."

A deathly pallor overspread the young man's face. He bowed his head in his hands and great sobs shook his frame. "My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" he gasped over and over again. Accustomed as the doctor was to suffering and sorrow this man's anguish was too much for him. The tears rolled down his cheeks and he made no effort to restrain them.

After a long time the younger man raised his head and spoke in broken words, "Doctor, I must not keep you here. You are needed elsewhere.

Leave me to Remorse. I am young and you are growing old, Doctor, but will you take this word from me? You and all in your profession should long ago have told us these things. The world should not lie in ignorance of this tremendous evil. If men will not be saved from themselves they will save their unborn children, if they only know. G.o.d help them."

The doctor went slowly homeward, his mind filled with the awful calamity in the household he had left. "It is time the world is waking," he thought. "We must arouse it."

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

"Is this Mrs. Blank?"

It was a manly voice vibrating with youth and joy.

"I want to tell you that your husband has just left a sweet little daughter at our house."

"Oh, has he! I'm very glad, Mr. Farwell. Thank you for telephoning.

Father, mother and baby all doing well?"

"Fine as silk. I had to tell _somebody_ right away. Now I'm off to send some telegrams to the folks at home. Goodbye."

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

"This is Mrs. Blank is it not?"

"Yes."

"Will you please tell the doctor that father is dead. He died twenty minutes ago."

"The doctor was expecting the message, Mr. Jameson," said Mary gently.

This, too, was the voice of a young man, but quiet, subdued, bringing tidings of death instead of life. And Mary, going back to her seat in the twilight, thought of the words of one--Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. The eternity before the baby came, the eternity after the old man went, were solemnly in her thoughts. But they were not cold and barren peaks to her. They were crowned with light and warmth and love.

And into her thoughts came, too, the never-ending story of the 'phone as it was unfolding itself to her throughout the years. Humor and pathos, folly and wisdom, tragedy and comedy, pain, anguish, love, joy, sorrow--all had spoken and had poured their brief story into the listening ear of the helper. And when he was not there, into the ear of one who must help in her own poor way.

O countless, countless messages stored in her memory to await his coming! Only she could know how faithfully she had guarded and delivered them. Only she could--

Ting-a-ling. Ting-a-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.