“Foster, you own the house I live in. If--this was what I really came to tell you--if you feel you ought to sell that house along with other things I don’t want you to let any thought of me stand in the way. Perhaps you wouldn’t anyway. I know you will never forgive me for--well, for that business of Esther’s marriage. I have thought about it seems to me every minute since it happened, and tried to look at it every way, and I can’t feel that I did wrong. In fact I am surer than ever that I did right. But you don’t feel so, I know. Well, that’s past and gone. Now about this house Millard and I live in, that I rent from you. If you have a good chance to sell for a good price, and you feel you ought to sell, then you must do it. I can find somewhere else to go just as well as not. Don’t you fret about that at all. Promise me you won’t.” For the first time since she entered the room his manner changed. Hitherto he had been gruff, defiant, cynically aloof. Now, as she made this appeal, the frown faded from his brow. As she finished he turned his head away. She waited for him to speak, but he did not do so. “You will sell if you think you ought to, won’t you, Foster?” she urged. He cleared his throat. “There, there,” he muttered, hastily. “That’s all right, Reliance. I shan’t have to turn you out, I guess. Not yet a while, anyhow. Don’t be frightened about that.” “I wasn’t frightened--not about myself at all. I just wanted to be sure.” “Sshh! Sshh! Forget it.... What? Are you going? You don’t make long calls, do you? It has been a good while since you made any--up here.” “It isn’t any farther from your house to mine than it is from mine to yours. You haven’t been droppin’ in on me very often. Oh, I don’t blame you. I suppose likely I should feel as you do if I were in your place. We are both of us pretty set in our ways.... Well, good-by.” He rose. He crossed the room, turned back and spoke. What he said came as a tremendous surprise. “What is the news from--over yonder?” he asked, gruffly. “Over where? Why!... Do you mean from--from Esther?” “Yes. I presume likely you get letters, don’t you?” Reliance drew a long breath. “Why--why, yes, I do,” she stammered. “She writes me every week.” “Humph! Well, if she can write she hasn’t starved to death yet, I take it. How is she getting along?” “Why, very well, I should say. She lives in Paris and--and she seems to be very happy.” “Um-hum. All right. Good-by.” She turned to go. Then she hesitated. “Foster,” she faltered, “I--” “Well? What?” She shook her head. “I was wonderin’ if I ought to say it,” she confessed. “I guess I will. Foster, in every letter she writes me she asks about you. She wants to know how you are and what you are doin’ and--and everything. And in every one of those letters she asks if I think you would care to have her write you. She wants to do it, Foster. Indeed and indeed she does! Shall I tell her you said she might?” His answer was prompt.