"It's one of Tora's theories that I should propose to her all over again about once a year--and somehow to-night seemed rather a suitable opportunity," Stephen explained. "She's at perfect liberty to refuse me, and, as a matter of fact, she's generally rather difficult about it. That's why it's so late." His eyes twinkled again. "She imposes all sorts of conditions as to my future conduct. I argue a bit, or she wouldn't respect me. Then I give in--but, of course, I don't observe them all, or what fun would it be next year? She's accepted me this time, but she says it's the last time, unless I mend my ways considerably." A spark of Dick Dennehy's old scorn blazed out. "So that's the way she gets round her precious theory, is it? And the woman a respectable wife and mother all the time!" Winnie laid her hand on his arm. "There is one thing that can get round everything, Dick." "A fact which, in all its bearings for good and evil, must be carefully brought out in the Synopsis," said Stephen Aikenhead. They left him twinkling luminously at them through clouds of tobacco smoke. "Hang the man, is he in earnest about his old Synopsis, as he calls the thing?" asked Dick Dennehy, as they started for the cottage. Winnie considered. "I don't quite know. That's the fun of Stephen! But, anyhow"--she pressed his arm--"if this thing--our thing--doesn't end before the Synopsis does, we're all right! It'll last our lives, I think, and be still unfinished." Her laugh ended in a sigh, her sigh again in a smile. "Oh, I'm talking as if it were a fairy-tale ending, out of one of Alice's stories. Well, just for to-night! But it isn't really--it can't be, Dick. It's not an ending at all. It's a beginning, and a beginning of something difficult. Look what you're giving up for me--the great thing I'm accepting from you! And it's not a thing to be done once and for all. It'll be a continuing thing, always cropping up over other things great and small. Oh, it's not an ending; it's only a start. Is it even a fair start, Dick?" "It's a matter of faith, like everything else in the world that's worth a rap," said Dick Dennehy. "At all events, we know this about one another--that we're equal to putting up a fight for what we believe in and love. And odds against don't frighten us! I call that a fair start. What do you make of life, anyhow, unless it's a fight? We'll fight our fight to a finish!" His voice rang bravely confident; his sanguine spirit soared high in hope. When she opened the cottage door, and the light from a hanging lamp in the narrow passage fell on him, his face was happy and serene. With a smile he coaxed her apprehensions. "Ah, now, you're not the girl you were if ye're afraid of an experiment!" She put her hands in his. "Not the girl I was, indeed! How could I be, after it all? But here's my life--am I to be afraid of it? Any use I am, any joy I have--am I to turn tail? I won't, Dick!" "Always plucky! As plucky as wrong-headed, Winnie!"