A choking, which he didn't wish her to notice, made it necessary. She was aware of the gratitude, the sincere gratitude in his tone, and her sympathy went out to him more than ever. As she saw him sitting there, with head bowed and face hid, he seemed his mother's boy. She felt strangely that other part. Impulsively, she advanced to where he sat by the window, with the sunlight streaming in upon him. In the bright, soft light, his curly hair shone, and seemed more beautiful than she had noticed it before. She laid her hand upon it. An hour ago, she would not, could not have dreamed she would do this. And then she spoke in words, the kindest, he felt, he had ever heard. "There, now. It will be all right. Just give yourself time. Oh, it's a great struggle, this human problem. All these black ones of ours. But you are pursuing the right course, and some day they will see it. Then will come your success. It's going to come. It will come. It _must_ come. These people can't keep on going along as they are; this crime--murder. It's terrible. Someone will help to stem the tide of it, someone will lead them. They need leaders. They are not bad people, with all we see and now know of them. They simply need some one to lead them into the light. I feel you will be that person. Yes. I am sure you are the person." She paused a moment, and it was only then, she became aware that her hand still rested upon his head. She removed it now, and silently left the room. * * * * * "I love her! I love her!" cried Wilson Jacobs. "Oh, God lead me, for I know not whither I go!" It was the first time in his thirty-one years that Wilson Jacobs had felt so. But he was a man. And the fact made him respect Mildred Latham the more. Not for anything would he have her know his secret after this. She had thought of him in no other way but to help him. That was all. He would have to go forth now with a secret from Constance even. He studied his text for the coming Sunday, and prepared himself to preach as he had never preached before. "Here is an example of how much our people down here desire a Y.M.C.A., Miss Latham," said Reverend Jacobs later. "You may recall that, last spring the colored people of Grantville (which had a population, in the last census, of one hundred ten thousand people, almost forty thousand being colored), made a great campaign to secure a Y.M.C.A." He laid before her a Negro journal, published weekly at Grantville. She picked it up and read the whole article.