"You found yourself, Dan; that was the way of it. I saw it and appreciated it--it meant more to me than I can tell you. I knew exactly how it was that you started as you did; it was part of your fate; but it made possible the finer thing. It's nothing in you or what you've done or may do. But I have my own work to do. I have cut a pattern for my own life, and I must try to follow it. I think you understand about that--I told you that night when we talked of our aims and hopes on the campus at Montgomery that I wanted to do something for the world. And I must still go on trying to do that. It's a poor, tiny little gleam; but I must follow the gleam." "But there's nothing in that that we can't do together. We can go on seeking it together," he pleaded. "I hope it may be so. We must go on being the good friends we are now. You and Aunt Sally are all I have--the best I have. I can't let you spoil that," she ended firmly, as though, after all, this were the one important thing. There was nothing here, he reasoned, that might not be overcome. The work that she had planned to do imposed no barrier. Men and women were finding out the joy of striving together; she need give up nothing in joining her life to his. He touched the hand that lay near and thrilled to the contact of her lingers. "Please, Dan!" she pleaded, drawing her hand away. "I mean to go on with my life as I have begun it. I shall never marry, Dan,--marriage isn't in my plan at all. But for you the right woman will come some day--I hope so with all my heart. We must understand all this now. And I must be sure, oh, very sure, that you know how dear it is to have had you say these things to me." "But I shall say them again and always, Sylvia! This was only the beginning; I had to speak to-night; I came here to say these things to you. I am able to care for you now--not as I should like to, but I'm going to succeed. I want to ease the way for you; I mean that you mustn't go back to teaching this fall!" "There, you see"--and he knew she smiled in her patient, sweet way that was dear to him--"you want to stop my work before it's begun! You see how impossible it would be, Dan!" "But you can do other things; there are infinite ways in which you can be of use, doing the things you want to do. The school work is only a handicap,--drudgery that leads to nothing." He knew instantly that he had erred; and that he must give her no opportunity to defend her attitude toward her work. He returned quickly to his great longing and need. "Without you I'm a failure, Sylvia. If it hadn't been for you I should never have freed myself of that man over there!" And he lifted his arm toward the lights of the Bassett landing on the nearer shore. "No; you would have saved yourself in any case; there's no questioning that. You were bound to do it. And it wasn't the man; it was the base servitude that you came to despise."