“There won’t be any comebacks,” said John Flint, with engaging confidence.  “As for you, Mary Virginia, you don’t have to worry for one minute about what those fellows can do—­because they can’t do anything.  They’re double-crossed.  Now listen:  when you see Hunter, you are to say to him, ‘Thank you for returning my letters.’  Just that and no more.  If there’s any questioning, stare.  Stare hard.  If there’s any threatening about your father, smile.  You can afford to smile.  They can’t touch him.  But how those letters came into your hands you are never to tell, you understand?  They did come and that’s all that interests you.”  He began to laugh, softly.  “All Hunter will want to know is that you’ve received them.  He’s too game not to lose without noise, and he’ll make Inglesby swallow his dose without squealing, too.  So—­you’re finished and done with Mr. Hunter and Mr. Inglesby!” His voice deepened again, as he added gently:  “It was just a bad dream, dear girl.  It’s gone with the night.  Now it’s morning, and you’re awake.”

But Mary Virginia, white as wax, stared at the letters in her hand, and then at me, and trembled.

“Trust us, my child,” said I, somewhat troubled.  “And obey John Flint implicitly.  Do just what he tells you to do, say just what he tells you to say.”

Mary Virginia looked from one to the other, thrust the package upon me, walked swiftly up to him, and, laying her hands upon his arms stared with passionate earnestness into his face:  the kind, wise, lovable face that every child in Appleboro County adores, every woman trusts, every man respects.  Her eyes clung to his, and he met that searching gaze without faltering, though it seemed to probe for the root of his soul.  It was well for Mary Virginia that those brave eyes had caught something from the great faces that hung upon his walls and kept company and counsel with him day and night, they that conquered life and death and turned defeat into victory because they had first conquered themselves!

“Yes!” said she, with a deep sigh of relief.  “I trust you!  Thank God for just how much I can believe and trust you!”

I think that meeting face to face that luminous and unfaltering regard, Mary Virginia must have divined that which had heretofore been hidden from her by the man’s invincible modesty and reserve; and being most generous and of a large and loving soul herself, I think she realized to the uttermost the magnitude of his gift.  Her name, her secure position, her happiness, the hopes that the coming years were to transform into realities—­oh, I like to think that Mary Virginia saw all this, in one of those lightning-flashes of spiritual insight that reveal more than all one’s slower years; I like to think she saw it given her freely, nobly, with joy, a glorious love-gift from the limping man into whose empty hand she had one day put a little gray underwing!

I glanced at my mother, and saw by her most expressive face that she knew and understood.  She had known and understood, long before any of us.