"Beware, lad, of women!" he importuned me.
"Humph! You still despise the sex on account of
that affair with the colleen of the short upper lip."
"Verily. And the eyes of that little lady, who guided
your grandfather back from the other world, reminded
me strongly of her! Bah, these women!"
"Precious little you know about them!" I retorted.
"The devil I don't!"
"No," said Stoddard, "invoke the angels, not the
devil!"
"Hear him! Hear him! A priest with no knowledge
of the world."
"Alas, my cloth! And you fling it at me after I have
gone through battle, murder and sudden death with you
gentlemen!"
"We thank you, sir, for that last word," said Larry
mockingly. "I am reminded of the late Lord Alfred: "I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To watch the three tall spires,-' "
he quoted, looking off through the twilight toward St.
Agatha's. "I can't see a blooming spire!"
The train was now roaring down upon us and we
clung to this light mood for our last words. Between
men, gratitude is a thing best understood in silence;
and these good friends, I knew, felt what I could not
say.
"Before the year is out we shall all meet again," cried
Stoddard hopefully, seizing the bags.
"Ah, if we could only be sure of that!" I replied. And
in a moment they were both waving their hands to me
from the rear platform, and I strode back homeward
over the lake.
A mood of depression was upon me; I had lost much
that day, and what I had gained-my restoration to the
regard of the kindly old man of my own blood, who had
appealed for my companionship in terms hard to deny-
seemed trifling as I tramped over the ice. Perhaps
Pickering, after all, was the real gainer by the day's
event. My grandfather had said nothing to allay my
doubts as to Marion Devereux's strange conduct, and
yet his confidence in her was apparently unshaken.
I tramped on, and leaving the lake, half-unconsciously
struck into the wood beyond the dividing wall, where
snow-covered leaves and twigs rattled and broke under
my tread. I came out into an open space beyond St.
Agatha's, found the walk and turned toward home.
As I neared the main entrance to the school the door
opened and a woman came out under the overhanging
lamp. She carried a lantern, and turned with a hand
outstretched to some one who followed her with careful
steps.
"Ah, Marian," cried my grandfather, "it's ever the
task of youth to light the way of age."