"I wish we were back there now," he answered feelingly, as he responded to her request. "We always wish for something we have had, instead of something we are going to have, don't we?" she asked, her hand modeling indefinite figures in the damp sand. "I wonder why that is." "Because the past is known, and we can select the happy moments as we choose. The future is unknown, and we must take it as it comes." "Oh, if we could only look into that future!" she exclaimed suddenly. "If we could only be sure that in it we could correct our mistakes! How that would simplify the problems of the present!" "Why speak so strongly?" he asked. "That belongs to those who have mistakes to correct." "I have been thinking of myself all my life," she replied, at once making the personal application. "I formed an ideal which I insisted upon realizing, and when I found it at last it proved beyond my reach." "To have found it at all is more than most of us can claim." Her hand paused in its idle motions, and she looked up at him inquiringly. "But you found yours." "Don't!" he said softly, a twinge of pain crossing his face. "I've hurt you again!" she cried impulsively. "Don't you see how selfish I am? That proves it! There is no one I wouldn't rather hurt than you, yet twice I've done it. Please forgive me; I'll not do it again." "There is nothing to forgive," he insisted as he did before. "I'm too sensitive, that is all. Sometimes Life draws back the curtain and shows us a wonderful picture of what might have been, to test the strength of the philosophy the years should have taught us. The strong say, 'That is not for me,' and pass it by; the weak stretch out their arms and cry in vain for what they ought to know is not for them. I am among the weak." "You among the weak!" she cried incredulously. "How little you appreciate yourself! It is of your strength which you must give me now, for I am trying to be true to what you have taught me by your example: by making some one else happy I am going to seek for happiness myself." It had come! Huntington needed no further confidence to complete the avowal. He must be careful not to endanger the possibility of success coming to the efforts which this brave spirit was prepared to make. Hamlen was almost normal now. If this must be, Huntington knew that he had played his part in preparing his classmate for the supreme joy which ought to come to him in sharing the life of such a girl. At least he had made her happiness possible. But the irony of her reference to his teachings! "Then you are ready for the supreme test?" he asked in a low voice. "If it comes."