Above the shrill, exultant voices, Ruth's clear tones rang firm and true. Drew watched her from his place beside the tree, and his heart ached for her. And yet--what strength and power she had. She so slight and girlish. She had lost faith, and had had love wrenched from her. She was bent upon a martyr's course, and yet she sang, with apparent abandon of joy, the old Christmas song. Constance Drew was an adept at prolonging pleasure and thereby intensifying it. With the tree bowed with fruit, standing glorified before them, the rapt company listened with amaze to Maggie Falstar as she sniffled and hitched through a poem so distorted that the only semi-intelligible words were: "An--snow--they--snelt--at--the manger, lost in--reverent--raw." This part of the programme affected Leon Tate in a most unlooked-for manner. "Say, Smith," he remarked to the station-agent, who was gazing at Constance Drew with his lower jaw hanging, "that beats anything I ever heard in the natural artistic line. Blood's bound to colour its victims--do you remember Pete's mother?" Tom Smith had forgotten the old lady. "Well, as sure as I'm setting here, old Mis' Falster uster come inter the Black Cat when she'd had more than was good for her out of the tea-pot, and recite yards of poetry standing on a chair and holding to the top of the screen. There hasn't been a hint of such a thing since then till--" But _the_ moment had come. The moment when the heart leaped to meet its desire. The moment when the desire materialized, and the soul asked no more. Workworn faces quivered with happiness. Things that vanity had yearned for, but stern necessity had denied, were held now in trembling hands: precious gifts that one _could_ do without, but were all the more sacred for that reason. Jewelry and pretty bits of useless neckwear, and gauzy handkerchiefs. Useless? No. For they were to win admiration that was all but dead, and give sodden women an incentive to live up to them. Little hungry-hearted children hugged dolls so beautiful, yet so human, that nothing more could be asked. Boys, awkward and red, shook like leaves as they fumbled with "buzzum pins" and gorgeous ties and fancy vests. Sleds, skates and books abounded, and St. Ange, on that sacred day, revelled in the superfluous and the long-denied. Constance Drew came upon Billy later, while games were in wild progress in the hall and study, seated in a dark corner of the dining room weeping as if his heart would break over a be-flowered vest and a rich red tie. "Billy!" "Yes'm." Billy was too far gone to make pretence. "Don't you like--what you have?" "Gosh! Yes." "Are you happy, dear?" The gentlest of hands touched the red head. "Happy?" Billy blubbered; "I'm busting with it." "Billy!" and now Constance spoke slowly, impressively, "I want to tell you--something. It's something we have all thought out. It is, perhaps, another Christmas gift for you, dear. I--am--going--away!"