Thus the summer of 1913 became for me a very happy one. There were reserves to that happiness, and there were fears; but the optimism most of us bring to the day’s work enabled me to face them. Of Regina Barry I heard much from my friend Cantyre, and I made what I heard suffice me. He was always willing to talk of this girl, whom he never named; and little by little I formed an image in my heart, which would never be anywhere but in my heart as long as I could help it. As long as I could help it I should not see her, nor should she see me. As to that I was now quite positive. Nothing could be gained by my seeing her, while by her seeing me everything might be lost. If everything was lost in one way I was sure it would be lost in another. Because I have said little or nothing of the fight I was making you must not suppose that I was free from the necessity of making it. I was making it every day and hour. There were times when, if I hadn’t had Lovey to think of, I should have yielded to that suggestion which had come to me as neatly as it had come to him of having a little fall. Falls were far from unknown among us. They were accepted as an unhappy matter of course. Some of our steadiest members had made full use of the three times the law of the club allowed them before finally settling down. I believed that I could exercise this privilege—and come back. But not so with Lovey! Once he failed in this attempt, I knew he would be gone. As a matter of fact, he would have failed at any time after the first week if it hadn’t been on my account; so I couldn’t fail on his. When I would have done it eagerly, wildly, I was withheld by the old-fashioned motto of _noblesse oblige_. And yet in proportion as I grew stronger I realized more clearly that my future was, as it were, balanced on the point of a pin. Once I had met Regina Barry, and her eyes had said, “You are the man who stole my gold-mesh purse,” I knew it would be all up with me. She wouldn’t have to say a word. Her look would bring the accusation. Then, if I was weak I should go off and get drunk; I should drink till I drank myself to death. If I was strong I should shoot myself. There was just one thing of which I was sure—I should never face that silent charge a second time. But as the weeks went by and nothing happened I began to be confident that nothing would. We reached the end of September and I never heard Regina Barry’s name. Even Cantyre hadn’t told me that, and didn’t suppose that I knew it. I calculated the chances against our ever meeting. I built something, too, on the possibility that were we to meet she wouldn’t know me again.