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When they reached Green Village station he gathered up Grandma’s parcels and helped her tenderly off the train.

“Anybody here to meet Mrs. Sheldon?” he asked of the station master.

The latter shook his head. “Don’t think so. Haven’t seen anybody here to meet anybody tonight.”

“Dear, oh dear,” said poor Grandma. “This is just what I expected. They’ve never got Cyrus’s telegram. Well, I might have known it. What shall I do?”

“How far is it to your son’s?” asked the dark man.

“Only half a mile–just over the hill there. But I’ll never get there alone this dark night.”

“Of course not. But I’ll go with you. The road is good–we’ll do finely.”

“But that train won’t wait for you,” gasped Grandma, half in protest.

“It doesn’t matter. The Starmont freight passes here in half an hour and I’ll go on her. Come along, Grandma.”

“Oh, but you’re good,” said Grandma. “Some woman is proud to have you for a son.”

The man did not answer. He had not answered any of the personal remarks Grandma had made to him in her conversation.

They were not long in reaching William George Sheldon’s house, for the village road was good and Grandma was smart on her feet. She was welcomed with eagerness and surprise.

“To think that there was no one to meet you!” exclaimed William George. “But I never dreamed of your coming by train, knowing how you were set against it. Telegram? No, I got no telegram. S’pose Cyrus forgot to send it. I’m most heartily obliged to you, sir, for looking after my mother so kindly.”

“It was a pleasure,” said the dark man courteously. He had taken off his hat, and they saw a curious scar, shaped like a large, red butterfly, high up on his forehead under his hair. “I am delighted to have been of any assistance to her.”

He would not wait for supper–the next train would be in and he must not miss it.

“There are people looking for me,” he said with his curious smile. “They will be much disappointed if they do not find me.”

He had gone, and the whistle of the Starmont freight had blown before Grandma remembered that he had not given her his name and address.

“Dear, oh dear, how are we ever going to send that money to him?” she exclaimed. “And he so nice and goodhearted!”

Grandma worried over this for a week in the intervals of looking after Delia. One day William George came in with a large city daily in his hands. He looked curiously at Grandma and then showed her the front-page picture of a man, clean-shaven, with an oddly shaped scar high up on his forehead.

“Did you ever see that man, Mother?” he asked.

“Of course I did,” said Grandma excitedly. “Why, it’s the man I met on the train. Who is he? What is his name? Now, we’ll know where to send–“

“That is Mark Hartwell, who shot Amos Gray at Charlotteville three weeks ago,” said William George quietly.

Grandma looked at him blankly for a moment.

“It couldn’t be,” she gasped at last. “That man a murderer! I’ll never believe it!”

“It’s true enough, Mother. The whole story is here. He had shaved his beard and dyed his hair and came near getting clear out of the country. They were on his trail the day he came down in the train with you and lost it because of his getting off to bring you here. His disguise was so perfect that there was little fear of his being recognized so long as he hid that scar. But it was seen in Montreal and he was run to earth there. He has made a full confession.”

“I don’t care,” cried Grandma valiantly. “I’ll never believe he was all bad–a man who would do what he did for a poor old woman like me, when he was flying for his life too. No, no, there was good in him even if he did kill that man. And I’m sure he must feel terrible over it.”

In this view Grandma persisted. She never would say or listen to a word against Mark Hartwell, and she had only pity for him whom everyone else condemned. With her own trembling hands she wrote him a letter to accompany the money Samuel sent before Hartwell was taken to the penitentiary for life. She thanked him again for his kindness to her and assured him that she knew he was sorry for what he had done and that she would pray for him every night of her life. Mark Hartwell had been hard and defiant enough, but the prison officials told that he cried like a child over Grandma Sheldon’s little letter.

“There’s nobody all bad,” says Grandma when she relates the story. “I used to believe a murderer must be, but I know better now. I think of that poor man often and often. He was so kind and gentle to me–he must have been a good boy once. I write him a letter every Christmas and I send him tracts and papers. He’s my own little charity. But I’ve never been on the cars since and I never will be again. You never can tell what will happen to you or what sort of people you’ll meet if you trust yourself on a train.”