It was no small struggle for him to say so, for he was beginning to comprehend just what this separation meant. She was more to him than he had ever supposed, more to him than she had been even an hour before; and now he understood clearly that from this moment they must ever run farther apart--her life tending upward, his down. Yet there was but one decision possible. A life which is lonely and dissatisfied, a wasted life, never fully realizes how lonely, dissatisfied, and wasted it is until some new life, beautiful in young hope and possibility, comes into contact with it. For a single instant Hampton toyed with the temptation confronting him, this opportunity of brightening his own miserable future by means of her degradation. Then he answered, his voice grown almost harsh. "This is your best chance, little girl, and I want you to stay and fight it out." Their eyes met, each dimly realizing, although in a totally different way, that here was a moment of important decision. Mrs. Herndon darkened the doorway, and stood looking out. "Well, Mr. Bob Hampton," she questioned, plainly, "what is this going to be?" He glanced toward her, slightly lifting his hat, and promptly releasing the girl's clinging hand. "Miss Gillis consents to remain," he announced shortly, and, denying himself so much as another glance at his companion, strode down the narrow path to the road. A moment the girl's eyes followed him through the dust cloud, a single tear stealing down her cheek. Only a short week ago she had utterly despised this man, now he had become truly more to her than any one else in the wide, wide world. She did not in the least comprehend the mystery; indeed, it was no mystery, merely the simple trust of a child naturally responding to the first unselfish love given it. Perhaps Mrs. Herndon dimly understood, for she came forth quietly, and led the girl, now sobbing bitterly, within the cool shadows of the house. CHAPTER VIII A LAST REVOLT It proved a restless day, and a sufficiently unpleasant one, for Mr. Hampton. For a number of years he had been diligently training himself in the school of cynicism, endeavoring to persuade himself that he did not in the least care what others thought, nor how his own career ended; impelling himself to constant recklessness in life and thought. He had thus successfully built up a wall between the present and that past which long haunted his lonely moments, and had finally decided that it was hermetically sealed. Yet now, this odd chit of a girl, this waif whom he had plucked from the jaws of death, had overturned this carefully constructed barrier as if it had been originally built of mere cardboard, and he was compelled again to see himself, loathe himself, just as he had in those past years.