"Can you come down, Ivory? It is a strange hour to call you but I
have something to tell you; something I have been piecing
together for weeks; something I have just clearly remembered."
"If it's something that won't keep till morning, mother, you
creep back into bed and we'll hear it comfortably," he said,
coming downstairs and leading her to her room. "I'll smooth the
covers, so; beat up the pillows,--there, and throw another log on
the sitting-room fire. Now, what's the matter? Couldn't you
sleep?"
"All summer long I have been trying to remember something;
something untrue that you have been believing, some falsehood for
which I was responsible. I have pursued and pursued it, but it
has always escaped me. Once it was clear as daylight, for Rodman
read me from the Bible a plain answer to all the questions that
tortured me."
"That must have been the night that she fainted," thought Ivory.
"When I awoke next morning from my long sleep, the old puzzle had
come back, a thousand times worse than before, for then I knew
that I had held the clue in my own hand and had lost it. Now,
praise God! I know the truth, and you, the only one to whom I can
tell it, are close at hand."
Ivory looked at his mother and saw that the veil that had
separated them mentally seemed to five vanished in the night that
had passed.
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