"No, I haven’t been home," he owned. "If a fellow could eat at all, he ought to be able to eat this." To Shirley’s satisfaction Peter consumed every one of the six thin sandwiches, and when she suggested a second cup of chocolate, he gratefully accepted it. He had been famishing, though he had not known it. The interview with the specialist had taken place before lunch time, and Peter had not remembered lunch at all. Being human, and very weary, creature comforts did their part in strengthening him, in mind as well as body. When he had finished, and had spent another half-hour listening to Shirley’s account of news from Forrest, who was in the West Indies now, he rose, a very different young man from the one who had come in out of the rain an hour before. When he had exchanged the velvet house-coat for the rough tweed one, now dried by the fire, he stood before her, hat in hand. He looked down into her friendly uplifted face and something very appreciative showed in his own. He could summon only the suggestion of a smile, but his eyes were less heavy, his colour had come back, and resolution was once more in his bearing. "You would put heart into a craven," he said, shaking hands. "You ’re no craven," answered Shirley, returning the look steadily with her frank eyes, "but one of the stoutest-hearted I ever knew. I know lots more about you than you think, and I know what you have been facing all these years in the way of sticking to work you did n’t like." "That’s nothing. Everybody does that, if he amounts to any thing." "Everybody doesn’t. But it’s made you strong and brave. You ’re brave now--and you ’re going to be braver yet." He studied her a moment in silence. Then the smile she had missed shone briefly out upon her as Peter said fervently: "If I am, it will be thanks to you, my friend. Good night!" CHAPTER VI A BREAKDOWN "Now make her come!" commanded Marian Hille, as her brother Brant brought his big green motor-car to a stand in front of the great building belonging to Townsend & Company. "Don’t let her refuse. How she can spend her days down here, drudging away, I don’t see! Brant, tell her I shall simply never forgive her if she does n’t shut up that typewriter at once and come along." "I ’ll say what seems to me to suit the situation," declared her brother, sliding out of his seat and divesting himself of his motoring coat. "Whether it will make any impression I ’m not so sure." He walked leisurely off, but when he was inside the building he made a short trip of it to the fifth floor and the offices. He was quite as anxious as his sister for the success of his errand. Murray himself welcomed young Hille cordially, and when Brant asked for Shirley, he led his visitor into an inner office. Here Brant stood still, gazing with interest. He had not yet seen his old acquaintance at her new tasks.