"No, I have not liked to do it." Afterwards, in her own room, she thought of that question and understood the answer better. "I have never lavished anything," he said. "As soon as I saw what grannie was about, trying to give me a body to live in, I began to help her. We have done it. Sometimes I think she did it sitting there in her chair and praying to her God. I haven't done any spending. It has been all saving. But when the time comes, I shall spend it all at once." She felt very far away from him. "How, playmate?" she asked timidly. He roused himself. "Never mind," he said. "That's not for us to think about to-night. Now run home, child, and go to bed." "But we haven't decided about me. What must I do?" He was silent for a moment and then he said,-- "A long time ago, grannie told me what to do. She said, 'Do the thing you think God wishes you to do.'" "But I don't know anything about God." "Nor I, playmate. But I think very often about what grannie said." "Have you tried to do it?" "I have kept it in my mind." It was her turn to brood in silence. Then she said to him,-- "It doesn't seem to mean anything to you,--that thing--I told you." "Everything you tell me means more than anything else in the world." "But about Tom Fulton. I was not married to him. I lied about it. It isn't possible that I seem--the same--to you." "You would always seem the same to me," he answered,--and she found herself smiling at the beauty of his voice. "How could you be different? These things are just things that happen to you. Should I like you less if you were caught in the rain, or got your pretty dress muddy?" "How do you know it is a pretty dress?" she asked irrepressibly. "Because it's your dress. Run home, now, and brush your hair." She went at once, and, in spite of her doubts, light-heartedly. He made her feel, as the night did, that here in this present life, as in the outer universe, are great spaces still unexplored. Everything had possibilities. Sprinkle new pollen on a flower and its fruit would take on other forms. Stretch out a hand and you might be led into unguessed delights, even after you were dulled with pain. Sleeping in the air, even, were forces to nourish and revive, dormant only because we do not call upon them. She smiled into the night, and her heart called believingly. XIX Madam Fulton sat on the veranda, in the shade of the vines. It was rather early in the morning, and Electra was about her methodical tasks. Billy Stark sat reading the paper, but nevertheless not failing, from time to time, to look up and give his old friend a smile. Madam Fulton could not answer it. She felt estranged in a world where she had failed to learn the values. "Billy," she said at length, "do you think she is right?" "Who?" "Electra. She says the money I got out of that pesky book is tainted money. Is it?"