Steve Loveland was one of those men whose intuitive sense is as fine as a woman's; of delicate physique, strong brain, and a sensitive temperament that might have gone off on a morbid tangent but for the common sense, cheerfulness, and unselfishness that held it true to the course. The last man in the world to lead a lonely life, but there was an invalid mother and a delicate sister in a pretty little country town home some two hundred miles away, and that was why Steve had no home of his own. Loving nature as I think most men of fine, sensitive fiber do, yearning for wife, and children, and hearthstone, as every good man must, he had cheerfully and forever put one side all hope of fulfilling these holy dreams and had taken his place on the force of a daily paper, never thinking he was a hero. His comrades never thought of that, either; they only knew that he was always pleasant, always considerate, always every inch a man, and they loved him with one accord. It was to such a friend as this that Randolph had given his heart, for although he did not fully understand him, he loved him, and the answering affection he received was one of the most beautiful of tributes to his own fine qualities. When Randolph was ready to talk he told the story of the day--its hope, its disappointment, and humiliation. "It beats the Dutch, Steve. I can't think what was the matter. There wasn't a thing I did or a word I said to make her behave so." Steve was softly poking the fire from above. The night was quite cool for June. "No, there was not," Randolph reaffirmed. "I've gone over the whole day again and again. I didn't give her the least excuse. What do you suppose was the matter with her?" Steve looked up with an almost startled air. "Oh, I'm sure I can't say. They're quite beyond me." "They're beyond every one," said Randolph in the tone of a Supreme Court judge. "I don't see what the Lord made them for." Steve looked up again and there was the least suspicion of a twinkle in his eye. "How is it," he asked in his gentle way--"how many of them is it you are prepared to manage?" Randolph brought his chair down on its four legs. "Not a confounded one!" he said. III For a time Randolph Chance was fairly dazed by the suddenness with which his fortune changed. Yesterday it was down--deep down; to-day it had gone flying up. He had followed Constance Leigh when she walked to the lake in the afternoon; had helped her from a perilous place in the midst of rough winds and still rougher waves; and as he took her from the pier their eyes had met, and this was why, later on, he sat by his friend's fireside in a state of bewildered rapture. An outsider, one of the world's common folk, would have made but little out of Randolph's brief, rough-hewn sentences. But Loveland was finely strung; he understood. "I can't forget that look. It breaks me all up every time I think of it."