Clementina responded gayly still, but with less and less sincerity, and she let Hinkle go at last with the feeling that he knew she wished him to go. He made a brave show of not seeing this, and when he was gone, she remembered that she had not thanked him for the trouble he had taken on her account, and her heart ached after him with a sense of his sweetness and goodness, which she had felt from the first through his quaint drolling. It was as if the door which closed upon him shut her out of the life she had been living of late, and into the life of the past where she was subject again to the spell of Gregory's mood; it was hardly his will. He began at once: “I wished to make you say something this morning that I have no right to hear you say, yet; and I have been trying ever since to think how I could ask you whether you could share my life with me, and yet not ask you to do it. But I can't do anything without knowing--You may not care for what my life is to be, at all!” Clementina's head drooped a little, but she answered distinctly, “I do ca'e, Mr. Gregory.” “Thank you for that much; I don't count upon more than you have said. Clementina, I am going to be a missionary. I think I shall ask to be sent to China; I've not decided yet. My life will be hard; it will be full of danger and privation; it will be exile. You will have to think of sharing such a life if you think--” He stopped; the time had come for her to speak, and she said, “I knew you wanted to be a missionary--” “And--and--you would go with me? You would”--He started toward her, and she did not shrink from him, now; but he checked himself. “But you mustn't, you know, for my sake.” “I don't believe I quite undastand,” she faltered. “You must not do it for me, but for what makes me do it. Without that our life, our work, could have no consecration.” She gazed at him in patient, faintly smiling bewilderment, as if it were something he would unriddle for her when he chose. “We mustn't err in this; it would be worse than error; it would be sin.” He took a turn about the room, and then stopped before her. “Will you--will you join me in a prayer for guidance, Clementina?” “I--I don't know,” she hesitated. “I will, but--do you think I had betta?” He began, “Why, surely”--After a moment he asked gravely, “You believe that our actions will be guided aright, if we seek help?” “Oh, yes--yes--” “And that if we do not, we shall stumble in our ignorance?” “I don't know. I never thought of that.” “Never thought of it--” “We never did it in our family. Father always said that if we really wanted to do right we could find the way.” Gregory looked daunted, and then he frowned darkly. “Are you provoked with me? Do you think what I have said is wrong?” “No, no! You must say what you believe. It would be double hypocrisy in me if I prevented you.” “But I would do it, if you wanted me to,” she said.