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Updated: June 23, 2025
Neither of his friends liked many of his actions, nor the stories told of him; but they liked him personally and were inclined to be silently sorry for him, but not to sit in judgment upon him. Both Orville and Callovan waited and hoped for "old Thornton"; but the wait had been long and the hope very much deferred. Callovan was frankly Irish.
Orville looked up and saw a bright light before him on the very summit and seemingly at the end of the road. As he gazed it took the form of a Flaming Cross. "I see a Cross on fire, Michael," he said. Michael answered simply: "Thank God." "I can see a Flaming Cross, too," said Callovan, speaking for the first time.
Both men knew that Thornton and Marion had passed out of their ken forever, and in the future would be to them as if they had not been. All three made haste to go toward the road which led up to the Flaming Cross. Then upon Orville's shoulders he felt a heavy burden, but still heavier was one which was bending Callovan down. Michael alone stood straight, without a weight upon him.
The curly black hair of the Milesian spoke for him as clearly as the blue-gray eye. He shaved clean and he looked clean. An ancestry of hard workers left limbs that lifted him to almost six feet of strong manhood. His skin was ruddy and fresh. Two years younger than Thornton, he yet looked younger by five. And Callovan, like Thornton, was inwardly what the outward signs promised.
It was already midnight when Orville, Thornton and Callovan arose from a table of the club dining-room and came down in the elevator for their hats and coats. They had spent an evening together, delightful to all three. This dinner and chat had become an annual affair, to give the old chums of St. Wilbur's a chance to live over college days, and keep a fine friendship bright and lasting.
"I wish I had known that," said Callovan. "But, alas! you did know," replied Michael. "We all knew these things. We are not learning them now. But look up, sir, and see the old man with the heavy burden above you. You are going to pass him on your way, yet he has been dead now for a year." Callovan looked up and gasped: "My father!" "Yes; your father," said Michael.
Callovan was smiling also, so Orville naturally smiled back at them. Thornton was frowning, and Marion looked horrible in her terror. Orville could understand nothing of it. He glanced about him and saw thousands of men and women, all smiling or frowning, like his companions. Several seemed to be about to begin a journey and were moving away from the groups, most of them alone.
Thornton had made his money within five years a lucky mining strike, a quick sale, a move to the city, speculation, politics were mixed up in a sort of rapid-fire story that the other friends never cared to hear the details of. Callovan inherited his wealth from his hard-fisted old father, who had died but a year before. Orville was the richest of the three. He had always been rich.
Before him he saw Thornton and Marion, side by side. Near them was Callovan with Michael. All were changed; but Orville could not understand just in what the change consisted. In Thornton and Marion the change was not good to look at, and Orville somehow felt that it was becoming more marked as he gazed. Michael was almost transformed, and was looking at Orville with a smile on his face.
"You have far to go to reach your father; but your load is heavier than my master's, and then you must be lonely for a while." "But why must I be lonely?" asked Callovan. "For many reasons, sir," replied Michael. "You will know them all as you go along. Knowledge will come. I may tell you but a few things now. In life you loved company, and it was often an occasion of sin to you.
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