He made it as easy as he could for her."

"And she has married again, I suppose?"

"Yes, she married again, but it did not last long. The man departed for he soon discovered that practically all the money he was evidently after, automatically transferred itself to my sister when her mother married again. Father put it into a trust fund for her till her coming of age."

"But, Dana, isn't it going to be a terribly hard thing for you to do, to go and see them under the circumstances?"

"It is. The hardest thing I ever did."

"Then why do you go? Surely you could make your father understand how you feel."

"He knew how I would feel when he asked me to go. It was my father's dying request, and I promised, Bruce."

"Your father has gone? Oh, Dana, I didn't know. Excuse me!"

"Yes, he died about two weeks ago, after an extended illness. I feel it was the culmination of all he had suffered."

"Man! I'm terribly sorry for you. I know what your father was to you in college. I remember him as one of the finest gentlemen I ever met. In fact I remember wishing I could have had a father like him. You know, I never knew my own father. I was only an infant when he died. But, Dana, I dread this experience for you. Why do you go right away when you must be feeling so sad? Won't it only make your grief the greater?"

"Perhaps," said Dana with a sad little smile. "But it is something my father left for me to do. It is something that he could not very well do for himself. Something that could not, in the nature of the case, be done while he was alive. It was something that had to be wholly impersonal, yet done by one who was a part of the whole thing."

Bruce gave him a puzzled look.

"I don't know that I fully understand just what it is that you have to do. I'm afraid my blind instinct would be to keep just as far away from this thing as possible."

"So would mine," said Dana with a faraway look. "If I consulted my feelings only, I would never go near them. But you see this is a matter that affects more than this earthly life. It has to do in a way with eternity. It was a responsibility that was laid upon my father's heart, and he could not get away from it until he had told me about it, and I promised to do it for him."

"You mean?" asked his friend with kindling eyes that glowed even through the perplexity in his face.

"I mean that Dad came to know the Lord in a rather wonderful way in the last few years, and he felt that somehow he had failed in not knowing Him sooner. He felt greatly burdened for my mother and sister. And yet, because of the peculiar circumstances, he could not go to them and present the matter, for it would be so greatly misunderstood that it would practically undo all he would want to do. Especially if the other husband was still involved in the picture. I do not know that he is. I have to find that out. Gossip has not been busy our way."

"But say, my friend, wouldn't this be a case where a friend might help? I'd be glad to do anything in my power. Would you like me to make some investigations for you? I could do that through--well, through someone--and you wouldn't need to appear in the matter at all.