“They—they are not coming after Henry.” Hoag was at the end of his resources. “Git all that rubbish out o' your head an' go to sleep!”
“How do you know they won't come, Daddy? Oh, Daddy, Henry really is my only brother an' I love 'im. You don't know how good he is to me sometimes. He mends my things, and makes toys for me with his knife, and tells me stories about sailors and soldiers and Indians.”
Hoag turned on his side and laid a caressing hand on the boy's brow. “Now, now,” he said, soothingly, “let's both go to sleep.”
“All right, Daddy.” Jack leaned over his father's face and kissed him. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Hoag rolled over to the front side of the bed, straightened himself out and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER III
ON finding himself alone in his room, Paul began to realize the full import of the startling information Hoag had imparted to him. He stood before an open window, and with the sense of being afloat on a sea of actual ecstasy he gazed into the mystic moonlight. Northward lay the village, and to the left towered the mountains for which he had hungered all the years of his absence. How restful, God-blessed seemed the familiar meadows and fields in their drowsy verdure! He took deep draughts of the mellow air, his broad chest expanding, his arms extended wide, as if to clasp the whole in a worshiping embrace.
“Thank God,” he cried, fervently, “I am not a murderer! My prayers are answered. The Lord is showing me the way—and such a way—such a glorious, blessed way!”