“Ah, if we could only be sure of that!” I replied. And in a moment they were both waving their hands to me from the rear platform, and I strode back homeward over the lake.

A mood of depression was upon me; I had lost much that day, and what I had gained—my restoration to the regard of the kindly old man of my own blood, who had appealed for my companionship in terms hard to deny—seemed trifling as I tramped over the ice. Perhaps Pickering, after all, was the real gainer by the day’s event. My grandfather had said nothing to allay my doubts as to Marian Devereux’s strange conduct, and yet his confidence in her was apparently unshaken.

I tramped on, and leaving the lake, half-unconsciously struck into the wood beyond the dividing wall, where snow-covered leaves and twigs rattled and broke under my tread. I came out into an open space beyond St. Agatha’s, found the walk and turned toward home.

As I neared the main entrance to the school the door opened and a woman came out under the overhanging lamp. She carried a lantern, and turned with a hand outstretched to some one who followed her with careful steps.

“Ah, Marian,” cried my grandfather, “it’s ever the task of youth to light the way of age.”

CHAPTER XXIX

AND SO THE LIGHT LED ME

He had been to see Sister Theresa, and Marian was walking with him to the gate. I saw her quite plainly in the light that fell from the lamp overhead. A long cloak covered her, and a fur toque capped her graceful head. My grandfather and his guide were apparently in high spirits. Their laughter smote harshly upon me. It seemed to shut me out, to lift a barrier against me. The world lay there within the radius of that swaying light, and I hung aloof, hearing her voice and jealous of the very companionship and sympathy between them.

But the light led me. I remembered with bitterness that I had always followed her,—whether as Olivia, trailing in her girlish race across the snow, or as the girl in gray, whom I had followed, wondering, on that night journey at Christmas Eve; and I followed now. The distrust, my shattered faith, my utter loneliness, could not weigh against the joy of hearing that laugh of hers breaking mellowly on the night.

I paused to allow the two figures to widen the distance between us as they traversed the path that curved away toward the chapel. I could still hear their voices, and see the lantern flash and disappear. I felt an impulse to turn back, or plunge into the woodland; but I was carried on uncontrollably. The light glimmered, and her Twice still floated back to me. It stole through the keen winter dark like a memory of spring; and so her voice and the light led me.