"Will you go, Brother Lewis?" Eldress asked him, doubtfully.

"Yee, if you think best," he said.

"I do think best," the old woman said.

He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his
wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of
the city where Athalia had elected to dwell. He found her
in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life.
He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked
at her with mild, remote eyes.

"Do you forgive me, Lewis?" she said.

"I have nothing to forgive, sister," he told her.

"Don't call me that!" she cried, with feeble passion.

He looked a little bewildered. "Yee," he said, "I forgive you."

"Oh, Lewis!--Lewis!--Lewis!" she mourned; "this is what I have done!"
She wept pitifully. His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did
not quite understand. . . . Then, abruptly, the veil lifted:
his eyes dilated with pain; he passed his hand over his forehead
once or twice and sighed. Then he looked down at the poor,
dying face that once he had loved.

"Why, 'Thalia!" he said, in a surprised and anguished voice;
suddenly he put his arm under the restless head. "There, there,