Charles toiled all that day in the fields. At no time during all his troubles had his depression been greater, due to the humiliating fact of Mary and her father being at work in his behalf. And what good would come of it? he kept asking himself. His appearance at court was inevitable sooner or later, and what could he say in his defense? Nothing and still remain true to the high stand he had taken.

He saw the sun sink below the mountain-top, and felt the coolness of the dusk as it came with its moist suggestion of falling dew. He saw Kenneth and Martin as they left their work some distance away and went singing toward the house. He wondered if Mary and her father had returned. The thought of having to face them in the lamplight at the supper-table was galling to his tortured spirit. He had known them such a short time, and yet was now on their bounty to an unpardonable extent. He bit his lips; he groaned; he cursed his fate. Finally, when it was too dark to work any longer, he started to the house. He was approaching the barn when he saw some one coming toward him. It was Mary, and a fresh sense of his humiliation swept over him like a torrent. What would she have to say? Perhaps the bond, after all, had been deemed insufficient. Perhaps—perhaps—But she was now before him. He dared not look straight at her, and was grateful for the thickening dusk that veiled him from her view.

"We are late getting back," she said, in a voice which, somehow, suggested a tremulous suppression of vast and sweeping emotion.

"I see," he returned. "I thought you\'d be back earlier. I\'m sorry I allowed your father to do that. I had no idea you were going with him. I ought to have stopped you both. Such a thing has never been heard of! Why, I am nothing but the tramp that I was when I came here! I\'ve not been open with you, and a man who is like that among strangers doesn\'t deserve—"

"Hush, Charlie!" Mary put her hand on his arm and smiled into his face. "We would do a little thing like that a million times and be glad of the chance. In fact, we have not done enough for you. It is we who ought to be grateful, not you. Charlie, we know all about you now—all about your Boston life—" She broke down and sobbed. She sobbed in sheer joy, but he misunderstood.

"You know, then!" he gasped. "You\'ve found out. They have traced me down. It was the name. If I had changed that I might have had a chance. It got into the papers, I see, and the news of my capture spread to the North. Well, well, you see now who you have been sheltering."

It was Mary\'s turn to misunderstand. Wiping the glad tears from her eyes, she faced him. She put her hand on his arm again.

"There is a great surprise waiting for you at the house," she said. "Who do you think is there to see you? Who, Charlie, who?"

He stared dumbly, his mouth falling open in limp despair.

"I promised that I wouldn\'t tell you," Mary went on, "so that you would be surprised suddenly, but you look so—so—You don\'t seem to understand that all your trouble and mine is over. Charlie, it is Celeste."

"Celeste!" he gasped. "Celeste!"

"Yes, and she has told us everything. Your brother ha............