Redeemed

She had questioned herself continually, but found no answer. Since she came back to her old home, she had been mysteriously led. Perhaps she was to be led further through the deep mazes of life--it was not only possible, but probable.

"I'll wait," she said to herself, "for a sign."

She had not seen the Piper since the day they met so strangely, with Anthony Dexter lying dead between them. Quite often, however, she had heard the flute, usually at sunrise or sunset, afar off in the hills. Once, at the hour of the turning night, the melody had come to her on the first grey winds of dawn.

A robin had waked to answer it, for the Piper's fluting was wondrously like his own voice.

Contrasting her present peace with her days of torment. Miss Evelina thrilled with gratitude to Piper Tom, who had taken the weeds out of her garden in more senses than one. His hand had guided her, slowly, yet surely, to the heights of calm. She saw her life now as a desolate valley lying between two peaks. One was sunlit, yet opaline with the mists of morning; the other was scarcely a peak, but merely a high and grassy plain upon which the afternoon shadows lay long.

Ah, but there were terrors in the dark valley which lay between! Sharp crags and treeless wastes, tortuous paths and abysmal depths, with never a rest for the wayfarer who struggled blindly on. She was not yet so secure upon the height that she could contemplate the valley unmoved.