world always holds in reserve lingered yet the one that he might after
all be living.

And now came this old man with his strange story, and the cap and the
cloak and the locket. Did it mean simply a renewal of the old hope,
destined to fade away again into a hopelessness duller than the last?

But what if the man's story were true? What if the boy were really in
life? What if in two days' time the father should clasp his living
child in his arms, and bear him to his mother! Ah! his mother. She
would have given her life any time to have had her child restored to
her, if only for a day. But she had been taught early to believe that
he was dead It was better than to torture her heart with hopes that
could only by the rarest possibility be fulfilled. Now, now, if he
dared to go home to her this night, and tell her that their son was
alive, was found, was coming back to them! Ah! if he only dared!

The sunlight, streaming through the western window, fell upon him as
he walked. It was that golden light that conies from a sun low in the
west, when the days are long, and it illumined his face with a glow
that revealed there the hope, the courage, the honor, the manly
strength that held mastery in his heart.

There was a sudden commotion in the outer office. Men were talking in
an excited manner; some one opened the door, and said:--

"There's been an accident in the breaker mine, Mr. Burnham."

"What kind of an accident?"