"Just a moment, if you please," he said coldly and bitterly, addressing all who were present. "There is no cause for delay or hesitation so far as I can see--certainly there need be none on my account. The engagement between Ruth and myself was tacitly broken some weeks ago. She has been over-scrupulous in thinking that anything was due me. She was quite free from any promise to me. You owe me nothing," turning to her with a bow. "You have my best wishes." She went to him, holding out her hand. "William, it hurts me to hear you speak like that. I did my best to tell you--alone--and earlier. We were both mistaken--neither was to blame. There surely is no reason for hard feeling. My affection for you is just the same. William, dear--just for old time's sake." He took her hand, not because her loving gentleness won his forgiveness, but because he thought that no gentleman could refuse a lady's hand. And when she turned away with a long sigh and quivering lips, he stood firm and invincible, supported by the conviction that he alone of all those present had been right in everything. And such a conviction of one's own infallibility must be a very great support under life's trials and disappointments. There can hardly be any other armor so nearly impenetrable to all those barbed doubts and fears which perpetually assail and wound the unarmored. Think of what it must mean!--never to feel that you might have been kinder or more just, or more generous or more merciful than you were; never to have doubts and fears come knocking, knocking, knocking at your heart till you are compelled to see your mistakes when it is too late to do what was left undone, and--saddest and bitterest of all--too late to undo what was done. But no one except Ruth looked at William Pressley or thought of him. Philip Alston calmly and courteously repeated his request, and with Ruth's gaze urging it, Paul Colbert could not refuse to grant it. He took up his hat and went toward the door with Ruth walking by his side. And then, with his hand on the latch, he paused and turned, and looking over her head, gazed steadily and meaningly into the eyes of the three men. He looked first and longest at Philip Alston; then at William Pressley, and finally at the judge, with a slight change of expression. To each one of the three men his look said as plainly as if it had been put into words, that he held himself ready for anything and everything that any or all of them might have to say to him--out of her sight and hearing and knowledge. And they, in turn, understood, for that was the way of their country, of their time, and their kind; and having done this he went quietly away. XXIV OLD LOVE'S STRIVING WITH YOUNG LOVE