Billy ate long and uninterruptedly. Peggy supplied his demands before they were voiced, and Maggie, the small and unimpressed sister, eyed him from across the table with keen, unsympathetic stare. Occasionally she made known her opinions with a calm, sisterly detachment that roused no resentment in the new being who had hurled himself upon them.

"You eat like a real pig," Maggie remarked with a sniff. She was being trained for the bungalow fÊte, and she had suffered in the process.

Billy eyed her indifferently.

"Push them 'taters nearer," was all he replied.

"Your father'll kill you," Peggy ventured timidly, as she filled Billy's cup for the fourth time with a concoction which passed in St. AngÉ for coffee, because Leon Tate so declared it.

"No, he won't, neither," Billy said; "nobody ain't ever going to kill me, never!"

He turned a tense, defiant face to his mother, but there was something in his eyes that drew tears to Peggy's. She came behind his chair and, half afraid, let her hand rest upon his thin shoulder.

Wonder of wonders! Billy did not shake off the unfamiliar caress. On the contrary he smiled into the work-worn face above him.

"Ain't Billy terrible speckled when the tan's off?" Maggie broke in, "and his hair's as red as my flannel petticoat."

Peggy cast a threatening glance at her daughter.

"Clear off the table!" she commanded, for Billy was at last finished.

Maggie set about the task with relief. Something was afoot that she could not understand. Maggie was not spiritually constructed, but she was going to be a woman some day!

"Mother!" Generally Billy addressed her as "say!" "Mother, I'm going over to Hillcrest to school. I'm going to work when I can, and—make somewhat of myself."

Maggie dropped a cup, and, because she happened to be near her mother, Peggy relieved her own feelings by boxing the girl's ears. Then she turned again to her man-child and stared stupidly.

Poor downtrodden Peggy! She was at a crisis of motherhood that is common to high and low. Since Mary of Galilee found her son in the Temple questioning Wisdom, and with awe beheld that he was no longer her little child, the paralyzing question, "What have I to do with thee?" has set maternity back upon itself over and over again, in order that the suddenly arrived Man might be upon "his Father's business."

"Going to—make—something of yourself?"

Peggy's trembling hands groped feebly, and then, thank heaven! Billy drew near and glorified this new, but lonely place of his own creation.

"You've done your best, mother; I see it now, but I was—I ain't going to say what I was—but I'm going to be something different; and you're going to help me now, like you always have."

A pain gripped Peggy's throat, and the room whirled about. Then the mist cleared from the dim eyes and Hope lighted them.

"Son," she said solemnly, "I am. I don't quite see how, but the way will be opened. Go in, now, and rest; you look clean done for."

It was humiliating, but Billy had to feel his way to the door of the bedchamber beyond.

Alone with her daughter, Peggy's Vision on the Mount faded.

"Billy's aged terrible," she said to Maggie, who was still sulking because of the boxed ear.

"I know what's the matter with him." Maggie's lynx-eyes glittered. "I found some po'try he writ on the back of the wood-shed door. He thought nobody but him ever went there. It's grand po'try."

Maggie struck an attitude, and drawled:

My heart feels like a chunk of rock
When I am far from you,
But when you trip acrost my vision
My heart melts same as du.

"I learned that in one morning!" Maggie proudly declared. "I don't care if he is my brother, that's grand."

Peggy dropped helplessly in her chair. She had never looked for glory in her modest dream. That Billy should escape the degradation of the Black Cat, and that Maggie might have a lighter cross than her own to carry, had been the most she had plead for when she had had time to pray; and now—why God had crowned her lot by children who were undoubtedly geniuses! Maggie, too, had a circle of light about her head. And it had all dawned upon Peggy in a flash of an eye.

"You ain't sick to your stomach, are you, mother?"

Peggy repudiated this with scorn.

"Maggie," she said softly, "I want that you should write that out real plain for me, in print. I'm going to take it up to the bungalow."

"Billy'll cuss us." Maggie turned coward.

"Oh! I ain't going to let Mr. Drew think Billy done it." Peggy was waxing bold. "I'm going to tell him it was writ by a noted po'try-maker, and I want to find out what his views is as to its fineness."

Maggie looked dubious.

"He might guess," she said.

"How could he?" Peggy raised her face ecstatically. Then Maggie came close to her mother.

"Ma," she whispered, "don't you know why Billy writ that, and why he wants to get learning, and what not?"

"No," gasped Peggy, and she felt that the heavens were about to open.

"He wants to be different so he can spark—her!"

"Spark?" Peggy panted inanely as if the word were of foreign tongue.

"Yep, spark."

"Her?"

"Yep. Her. Miss Drew."

Peggy's jaw dropped.

Since the sudden opening of the door, and Billy's unlooked-for entrance, events had crowded upon Peggy Falstar's horizon.

Her children had been translated. She felt desolate and stricken, although her heart glowed with pride as she viewed them from afar. In a last attempt to cling to her familiar attitude toward Maggie at least, Peggy vaguely remarked:

"I wonder if your being a girl makes you such a plain fool?"

"I 'spose it might," Maggie returned indifferently.

"Well," her mother continued, "don't you go upsetting Billy with any of your fool ideas."

"I ain't going to hurt 'im." Maggie tossed her head.

"Hurt him!" Peggy sniffed. "You lay this up for future hatching, Maggie Falstar. You, me, nor nobody ain't ever going to hurt him again and know it. What hurts he gets, from now on, he ain't going to howl about."

Just then the supposedly slumbering Billy came out of the inner room. Mother and sister eyed him critically. He was magnificently attired in all the meagre finery he could call into service. What he lacked in attire he made up in the grooming. Billy shone. Billy was plastered. Billy smelled to high heaven of soap and kerosene. But there was that about Billy which checked Maggie's ribald jeers, and the mother's question as to where he was going.

However, Billy was magnanimous in his power. He turned at the outer door and satisfied his mother's curiosity.

"Anything you want sent up to Joyce's?"

"Joyce's?" gasped Maggie. "Joyce's?"

Billy held her with a glance.

"Joyce's," he repeated. Then receiving no reply, he went out into the still, cold night.

Billy felt like a man who held the fortune of many in the hollow of his hand.

Knowing the ways of St. AngÉ men he felt sure the letter from "the backwoodsman" to Joyce would be several days, or a week, in materializing, perhaps much longer. It was for him to be ready and watchful; but there was no immediate call for action. His sympathies were so largely aroused for Joyce, that he meant to overcome his yearning to be with the object of his passion, and on that first night he intended going to Gaston's shack and setting Joyce right about the future and his own part in the drama.

Billy realized that he must shield himself. Birkdale and Lauzoon must never know of his presence in the hut. Joyce, Billy felt sure, would coÖperate with him. If he and she could find Gaston, all might be safe and well; but while Gaston was absent, danger lurked. However, Joyce must refuse to meet "the backwoodsman"; after that they two, Billy and Joyce, must find a path that connected Gaston with them, and make him secure from the plots of the evil Birkdale and the weak, foolish Jude of the unerring shot.

All this Billy thought upon as he strode forward whistling comfortably, and his chest swelling proudly.

It was one thing to whistle on the highway of St. AngÉ, and quite another to whistle in the wilds of the North Solitude.

Billy was full of creature comfort, and the scattered lights of the houses gave cheer and a feeling of security to the boy.

The Black Cat's twinkling eyes had no charm for Billy. They were never to have a charm for him; but as he neared the bungalow his whistle grew intermittent and his legs had an inclination in one direction while his heart sternly bade him follow another. Then, without really being aware of his weakness, Billy found himself knocking on the bungalow door, and his heart thumped wildly beneath the old vest of his father's which he wore closely buttoned under the coat he had painfully outgrown.

In response to his knock, the wide, hospitable door was flung open, and Billy faced a stranger who quite unnerved him, by the direct and pointed question:

"Why, good evening, little boy; what do you want?"

The glow from within set Billy's senses in a mad whirl, but the "little boy" was like a dash of cold water to his pride and egotism.

"I—I—want—her!" Poor Billy was in a lost state.

"It is—I do believe it is my delectable Billy."

It was her voice, and it floated down to the boy at the gate of Paradise, from the top of a step-ladder. Halfway up the ladder Jock Filmer stood with his hands full of greens and his eyes full of laughter.

"Billy, come up and be welcomed. Get down Jock, you've had your turn."

His turn! A fierce hate rose in Billy's heart; but the stranger closed the door behind him; Aunt Sally and the minister were saying kind things to him, and informing him that the angel who had admitted him was Mrs. Dale, the Fairy of Christmas, and a great admirer of little boys.

Little boys! Were they bent on insulting him?

Jock descended with that laugh of his that always disturbed Billy's preconceived ideas. Then Billy was facing Her as she bent to meet him halfway.

The glad smile passed slowly from Constance Drew's face. The others, below, were talking and forgetting the two upon the ladder.

"Why—Billy—have you—been sick?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did they let you come home for Christmas?"

"No, ma'am. I jest cum."

Constance looked long at him, and at last the laugh was gone even from her dear eyes.

"Billy," she said softly, laying her hands on his shoulders, "you've been keeping your word to me, about swearing, and—and all the rest?"

"Yes'm."

"It's been hard, too, dear, I know; but it has made you into something—better." And then with a shining look on her face she bent and kissed him.

The heat rushed all over Billy's body, following a cold perspiration. His mouth twitched, and a maddening feeling of tears rose to his smarting eyes.

"I'm—going—over—to—Hillcrest school!" He whispered feebly, "I'm going—to get—learnin', an' things."

"Oh! Billy!"

"Yes'm."

"Oh! my dear Billy."

But such moments in life are brief. They are only permitted as propellers for all the other plain moments which are the common lot. Billy and Constance came down from the heights morally, spiritually and physically and joined the commonplace things below.

There was corn to pop, and candy to make. There were boxes to unpack, and goodies to eat; so was it any wonder that Joyce and her poor affairs should be relegated to a place outside this Eden?

Then, too, Jock complicated matters. He was shameless in his mirth and jokes. Even the stranger-lady with her wonderful aloofness could not daunt him, but Billy fiercely resented his attentions to the girl for whom he, Billy, had forsaken all else.

To leave the field to Jock was beyond the strength of mere man, so they stayed it out together, and left the bungalow in company just as the clock struck twelve.

It was then that the events of the past forty-eight hours began most to tell upon Billy. His exhausted nerves played him false, and cried out their desperate state.

As he and Jock left the warm, scented room behind them, and faced the white, still cold of an apparently dead St. AngÉ, the boy turned a drawn face upon Jock, and cried tremblingly, "Say, you better—keep—yer—hands—off!" Jock stood still, and returned Billy's agonized stare with one equally grim.

"I've just reached that conclusion myself, Billy," he said, with every trace of his past mirth gone.

Billy was hoisted on his own petard.

Hatred fled before the sympathy he felt flowing from Jock to him. He wanted to cry; wanted to fling himself upon his companion and "own up," but Jock anticipated all his emotions.

"See here, kid," he said in a voice new to St. AngÉ's knowledge of Jock; "you're not the fellow to grudge a poor devil an hour or so of heaven. There's the hope of an eternity of it for you; but for me there's going to be only—the memory of this hour. Shake hands, old man, and take this from me, straight. Keep yourself fit to touch. Lay hold of that and never let go. The more you care, the more you'll curse yourself, if you don't. It's the only decent offering a man can take to a woman. Everything else he can hope to gain afterward. A place for her, money, and all the rest; but if he goes to her with dirty hands and a heart full of shame, nothing can make up for it—nothing!

"Billy—I'd give you all I ever hoped to have here or hereafter if I could begin to-night where you are—and with the power to want to keep straight."

Billy shivered and looked dumbly, pathetically into the sad face above him. He had nothing to say. When Jock next spoke he was more like himself.

"Billy, will you see to a little business for me, and keep mum?"

This was quite in the line of the over-burdened Billy, and he accepted off-hand.

"I may—go—into camp before Christmas."

"Don't yer!" advised the boy magnanimously. "I ain't ever going to care again. You can stay here." Jock forbore to smile, but he laid his hand on Billy's shoulder.

"There's two big stacks of young pine trees up to my shack done round in bagging and ticketed to a place down the State. They're Christmas trees for poor kids, and I want you to see to getting them off for me to-morrow or next day, and if Tom Smith airs any remarks, you let on as how they hailed from the bungalow; for that's God's truth, when all's told."

"They'll go, Jock, you bet!" Billy gulped.

Curiosity was dead within him. Human suffering gave him an insight that soared above idle questioning.

"And Billy, there's another thing. I want you to go to Gaston's shack; tote water and wood for Joyce—and keep your mouth shut. And lay this by in your constitution. Gaston is a man so far above anything God ever created round here, that you can't understand him, but you can try to chase off the dirty insects that want to sting him. Catch on?"

"Yes"; murmured Billy, while unfulfilled duty clutched his vitals with remorse.

"I'm—I'm going up to Gaston's to-morrow," he said.

"And now, you old rip," Filmer shook off his strange mood, "walk up to a fellow's bunk with him. It's good to keep clean company when you can—and for as long as you can."

"Shall—shall I stay all night with you?"

Billy asked this doubtfully from the new instinct that was stirring within him. For an instant a gleam of pleasure lighted Filmer's face. It almost seemed like a yearning, then he said roughly:

"No, get home! You're afraid? If you are I'll turn back."

"What you take me for?" Billy sniffed scornfully, and then they parted company.

It was just when the hands of the clock in Drew's study pointed to half-past twelve, that the young master, sitting before the glowing logs, bestirred himself preparatory to turning in for the night.

A satisfied feeling had kept him up after the others had bade good night. He always enjoyed the anticlimax of pleasure, and the day had been a happy one.

He felt well. The companionship of the widowed wife of his closest friend, added interest to the new life in the woods. She had brought news and had awakened memories, but she had timed the Past and the Present to perfect measure. At last he could hope that the old wound was healed and that he could live among his people—his people! the thought thrilled him—with purpose and content. The rough men and women about him were drawing closer. He knew it in the innermost places of his heart. He was brightening their lives. He was holding their children for them, and opening a way for them to seek higher paths. It would all come out as he desired. It was a splendid field of work that had been given him—and he had rebelled so in his ignorance!

How he wished that Philip Dale could have lived to see and know. Of all the men whom he had known, Dale was the one man who could have comprehended this opening for service. What a noble fellow he had been! How his personality and charm struck one at the first glance. He had been one of those men who claimed friends as they came his way, without pledge of time or intimacy. He knew what was his own in life, and gripped it without question or explanation. He had been the first to understand Drew's ambition, so different from the ones of the social set in which they both moved.

"You'll always find me at your elbow, Drew," he had said, "in any scheme you start." But when the time came—Dale had slipped out of life as bravely and cheerfully as he had always lived. "And he had his own deep trouble," Drew mused as he prepared to bank the fire; "he never talked about it; but it made him what he was. One must go through some sort of fire to be of real service."

A light tap on the door startled him. He had been, in thought, far, far from St. AngÉ.

"Come!"

The door opened slowly and Ruth Dale entered.

She was all in white—a soft, long, trailing gown. Her hair had been loosened from the coronet, and fell in two shining braids over her shoulders. She looked very girlish as she came to the fire and dropped into a deep chair.

"Please put on more logs," she said softly. "Father Confessor, I've come to confess." There was something under the playfulness that touched Drew. "I told Connie that I wanted to talk to you about a plan of mine; well, so it is, but I want you to put the stamp of your sage approval upon it."

Drew shook his head.

"Hardly that," he said with a laugh, "but I'm willing to plot with you."

"I always think of you now," Ruth Dale continued, leaning toward the crackling logs, and holding her little benumbed hands open to the heat, "as 'the man who lives in his house by the side of the road, and is a friend to man'. Ralph, I need a friend! I must have one or I shall fail in that which I have set myself to do."

There was no lightness in the woman's manner now. She looked tragic; almost desperate.

Ralph Drew waited for her to go on. He was prepared to follow, but he could not lead.

Her youthfulness of appearance struck him now as it often had before; but the worn look in the eyes emphasized it to-night.

"You look tired, Ruth," he said kindly; "won't to-morrow—or"—for he saw it was well on toward one o'clock—"later in the day do?"

"Unless you are too weary to bide with me one little hour?" she replied wistfully; "it had better be now."

"You know what an owl I am, Ruth. With returning health my old habits seem to gain strength. I sleep more satisfactorily if I do it after midnight." He settled back comfortably in his chair, and the fire, encouraged by several small logs, rose to the occasion.

"I've been thinking about—Philip to-night."

"Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun for you—and me, Ruth."

"Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years—never before he was married?"

"No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and ready friendship among people who are here for only a short life. Others can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the Master seems to have equipped them."

"Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?"

"Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own personality, of which he gave lavishly."

The woman bending toward the fire, shivered, and as her head sank lower, one shining braid of hair dropped forward, shielding her face.

"Ralph—I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the—hardest that ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put. He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength to be beside her when all was done.

"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for himself—I have never been able to begin until—to-night. He said—he had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one—now he is gone.

"I must do as he would have me do—I see the justice, if the end is to be obtained, but thank God, I, who loved him—can still love him—and he has been dead a year!"

The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friendship, a blind comfort and assurance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance, and said quietly:

"I am sure where you loved, there was much to love."

"Yes; yes; that is true; and I begin to think the nobility of it all lay in his unconsciousness of the splendid character he builded so patiently and laboriously out of all the wreck.

"Philip had a brother, Ralph! His name was never spoken. He was two years older than Philip, and as different as it was possible for a brother to be.

"John was all strength and concentration; Philip all brightness and charm—in the beginning! Their mother adored Philip; she never understood John, and yet he was a good son, brave and faithful. But he could not show his nature—it lay so far below the surface. It was always easy for Philip. His charm attracted nearly everyone. My father always liked John better. He said there was splendid power in him, and—I must keep nothing from you, Ralph—I loved John—loved him, oh! how I loved him. I pitied him because he could not win what should have been his—I loved him for myself, and for all the others who were too dull to realize his worth. It was like mother love and all the rest, in one."

"Yes; the most God-like love of all. Only women know it, I fancy," Drew murmured.

"And then"; the agonized eyes seemed to plead even while they confessed, "then the awful thing happened. John took—he stole many thousands of dollars from men who trusted and honoured him."

"Ruth!"

"I could never have believed it, but he told me so himself. To the day of his death my father believed the half had never been told, but how could I think that, when John told me himself that he was guilty? Father was a judge—he was to have been the judge before whom John Dale was tried, but they relieved him of that horrible duty. John Dale was sentenced to five years—in prison! They said it was a light sentence."

"My God! Poor Phil! How terrible for you all!"

"Don't! don't!" Ruth Dale put out her hands as if warding off a blow. "Haven't you guessed? Can you not think?"

Drew shook his head slowly. He did not seem to be able to think at all.

"Mrs. Dale died soon after. She had a weak heart—it killed her. Philip was everything to her—he was heavenly good in his attention and devotion. Somehow, I wonder what you will think of me, but suddenly I became possessed with a passion for making happier them whom John had blighted. I grappled with my own love—I knew it would kill me if I let it gain power over me. I knew I never could be anything to John—I was not the sort of woman, Ralph, who could love the sinner—forgetting the sin. I could forgive—I thought I could—but I remembered all the more sharply.

"Philip had always loved me. I saw my way. I would ignore the stigma on the family, I would marry Philip and carry what joy I could to him and his mother. My father tried to restrain me. He called me martyr, sacrifice, and all the rest, but I married—and I know I took comfort into poor Mrs. Dale's life, and—I never doubted what I did for Philip. But—" Ruth whispered the horrible secret—"John Dale took the money for—Philip! He never wanted it for himself. He never used one dollar of it. It was Philip who ran the family honour, and his own, into danger—he made it seem to John that to tide him over the critical hour would be to save them all and bring no harm. But he was wrong. The crash came. John never cringed under the blow. To his simple nature the mere act was enough. He did not try to shield himself by one word of explanation—he went away!"

Drew's throat and eyes burned. He seemed to know all this like an oft-told tale that still had power to awe and control him.

"Then the years of agonized consecration began for Philip. I never knew until a week before his death, but the memory scorches into my soul day by day now.

"You see I thought it was love for his brother, and the shame, that had changed Philip—and that endeared him to me. All the lightness and carelessness of manner departed. A great, strong, tenderness took their place. But you know, it was so that he came into your life. He had a wide sympathy and charity, for all—oh! how it drew people to him. But think of his suffering—alone and through all those years!

"The money that was John's ruin was the force that brought success to Philip. You see—he could not explain—at least he thought he could not, he was too cowardly—and the knowledge spurred him on. Wealth flowed in and in. He paid, and with interest, all that had been taken. How the world praised him—and how he suffered as they applauded him! He gave great sums to charity—mostly to those charities that mitigate the misery of—the outcasts. Men and women who come under the law. Can you understand?"

"Yes! yes!" Drew's head was buried in his thin hands. His voice was full of anguish.

"They used to come to him, those sad creatures,—and he never turned them away. I have seen and heard them bless him as they knelt beside him. He helped them so wisely because—oh! because he was—one of them, and they never knew! Then the disease came—the cancer. I think he welcomed it—it was so sure to open the door for him—and I think he even loved the suffering as a kind of expiation.

"Never once did a murmur escape him of impatience or regret. It was he who cheered us. It was he who stood by my father's death-bed and comforted him, and strengthened me. Always cheerful, always helpful until—just before he went. When he knew the days were few—when the coward in him—his last enemy—died, he told me everything.

"He said—" a sob choked the words—"that I must find—John. I must lay waste the beautiful memory of him. Show the coward who had not been able to stand before men! I must redeem the past as best I could. I must begin with you—the friend he most loved—for you must help me find—John."

Ralph Drew rose weakly to his feet. Something had gone out of him. Something that he groped after, but could not grasp. He felt as if he and the stricken woman before him were lost upon a black and dangerous road. Their only salvation was to cling together spiritually and bodily. He caught the back of her chair for support, and bent over her.

"Is there no one, who kept in touch with—the brother? Was he utterly forsaken? God help him!"

"They said it was his desire. But there was one—I never knew who it was; that was part of the mystery—but some one claimed and claimed money for him, for John. I knew sums of money were paid regularly, I used to think it was another of Philip's charities—but I know now that there was a constant lash laid upon him. Oh! if they had only known all.

"Ralph, Philip left nearly all his fortune to his brother. There is only my portion reserved for me. So you see I must find him. I was left sole executor."

"I will help you, Ruth."

"I was sure you would. Philip spoke your name last; he said you could see the man he tried to be, even in the man he was."

"Yes! yes, a thousand times more than he ever hoped. What was the poor crumbling shell compared to the splendid soul that he builded through those horrible years? Years when he could not quite free himself from the craven thing that was his curse—the fear! fear! fear!"

The two were silent for a moment while the red glow showed them haggard and worn. Then it was the woman who spoke.

"Ralph—do you think a woman can love—really love—two men?"

He stared at her.

"Perhaps," he faltered; "perhaps, but in different ways."

"I loved them both. When—when I find John—if he wants me—if he asks me—I shall marry him." She shuddered.

"Ruth!"

"Yes; I think Philip would give him even—me. His renunciation was wide and deep. He, the great, strong soul of him, went on—alone. It had no real part with his weakness and all that was bound up in his weakness—he wanted John to have everything of which he had deprived him. You can understand, can you not? At the last, when fear had no further power, he was almost mad in his abandon of recompense.

"He did not tell me this, that awful night when he told me—the rest; but I felt it. I saw that I, with all else that had meant anything to him, was included in his shame; and the new nature that had evolved from the agony and remorse—had nothing to do with us any more!"

A deep sob shook the slim form. For a moment Ruth Dale rocked to and fro in her misery, then she let the wild confession again have its way.

"For myself—" the haunted eyes fixed themselves upon Drew's rigid face—"for myself—in a strange fashion—and oh! you shall not misunderstand me, I want to give to him that which I withheld from him when he needed it most. I want to bring back the gladness of life to him—if I can," she gasped; "it has all been such a hideous nightmare. If he wants me—if he wants me, he shall have me!" The words were flung out defiantly, fiercely.

Drew started to his feet, and went quickly to her. In all his life he had never seen on a woman's face such desperation and remorse.

As his friend's wife he had loved her as a sister. Her beauty had always fascinated and charmed him. To see her now, cast adrift on this troubled sea of love and fear, was a bitter, almost a terrifying sight.

He bent over her, and raised her face firmly and gently with one trembling hand. He felt that he must calm and steady her by physical control.

"Ruth," he said gently, but distinctly, "why do you look as you do? Tell me, what is in your heart?"

The woman tried to shrink from the hold he had upon her. He saw that the vital point of her confession she would keep from him unless he commanded, and, if the future were to be saved from the grip of the miserable past, he and she must thoroughly understand each other.

"Ruth, you must tell me everything."

She panted, but no longer struggled mentally or bodily.

"Because," she said, "even now, I could accept the man who was the true sinner easier than the man who was sinned against! Not because of a greater love; but because of the slime of the punishment that the one was doomed to suffer.

"That's what life has done for him—and me!" Again she shuddered. "Don't you see, even when my heart is breaking with love for him—and the old love is growing stronger as—as Philip seems to be going further from me—I shall always think of the hideous—detail that—he suffered. It was what Philip could not face—it is what I—must!"

The words came pantingly, grudgingly and full of soul-terror.

Drew sought for comfort to give to this poor, distracted woman whose white, still face rested in the hollow of his hand, like a dead thing.

"Ruth, you shall not lash yourself unnecessarily. God knows you have borne the scourge of others bravely enough. It is not the detail alone that rises before you, and keeps you from what you have set up as your duty—it is the weakness of the man. That is the pitiful difference. The sin is the sin—but the man who planned was more the master, than he who became the slave. Do not blame yourself entirely—can you not see, it is the instinctive homage humanity pays to even an evil interpretation of the Creator!"

A blur, for an instant, shimmered over the beautiful, solemn eyes.

"No." The woman would not shield herself in this hour. "No; for you forget Philip's cowardice—and weakness. But he was not—smirched with society's remedy for wrong-doing. No; even if I found John had come out of the—the detail, strong and purified, I know, as God hears me, I should always, when most he needed me, see the prisoner instead of—him. Oh! Oh! Oh!"

She closed her eyes, and the great tears were pressed from under the quivering lids.

Drew for very pity released the suffering face, but his hand rested on the bent shoulder. Then out of the strain of the black hour, he asked a question that seemed to have no part in the present trouble; no meaning.

"Ruth have you ever loved just for yourself—just because you wanted what you loved?"

"Just for myself? Who ever does in this world, I wonder?"

She sighed deeply, and sank back in the chair.

It was over at last. There was nothing now to do but to take up her cross and follow as she could; there was no more to be said.

Drew waited for her a moment, still standing behind the chair. Then he spoke clearly and firmly:

"Ruth, in Phil's going he left our love to us; for we are permitted to remember the splendid man in spite of the weakness which crippled him. We must carry out every wish of his. I think when this is done—his brave soul will be free from every earthly stain. The good he did; the man he was, must claim recognition as well as the sin that stamped him. Both are actual and real.

"We'll find John Dale if he is to be found. We'll give him all that is his own—his own. But I pray God he is still man enough to claim no more.

"And now, go to bed. You may sleep safely, for you have made yourself ready even for—sacrifice."

"No! no! Ralph."

"Yes! yes!"

He opened the door of the study, and with bowed head she passed out. Then Drew turned and mechanically banked the fire, and left the room orderly, as was his habit.

As he followed a few moments later, the little clock struck the half-hour of one. Much had been lost and gained in an hour's time.