"Now that is something I can understand," said Myra, when the tale was told. "The most of your charity work seems to me to be pitifully commonplace and inconsequent; but here was a mission which asked for all sorts of heroism, for which it promised to pay the highest of all prices, namely, the possibility of saving a man worth the trouble." Now Connie was well assured that her love for her neighbor was no respecter of persons, and she made answer accordingly. "I can't agree with you there, Myra. Mr. Jeffard's possible worth had nothing to do with it. I wanted to help him because--well, because it was mean in me to make him talk about himself that night at the opera. And besides, when I met him the next evening at Mrs. Calmaine's, he told me enough to make me quite sure that he needed all the help and encouragement he could get. Of course, he didn't say anything like that, you know; but I knew." Myra's eyes promised sympathy, and Connie went on. "Then, when I came upon him yesterday I was angry because he was hurting Tommie. And afterward, when I tried to explain, he made me understand that I mustn't reach down to him; and--and I didn't know any other way to go about it." "That was a situation in which I should probably have horrified you," said Myra decisively. "I shouldn't have noticed or known anything about him at first, as you did; but in your place yesterday, and with your knowledge of the circumstances, I should have said my say whether he wanted to hear it or not. And I'd have made him listen to reason, too." "You don't quite understand, Myra. It seemed altogether impossible; though if I had known what was in his mind I should have spoken at any cost." Twenty times the pendulum of the chalet clock on the wall beat the seconds, and Myra was silent; then she crossed over to Connie's chair and sat upon the arm of it. "Connie, dear, you're crying again,"--this with her arm around her cousin's neck. "Are you quite sure you haven't been telling me half-truths? Wasn't there the least little bit of a feeling warmer than charity in your heart for this poor fellow?" Constance shook her head, but the denial did not set itself in words. "He was Dick's friend, and that was enough," she replied. Miss Van Vetter's lips brushed her cousin's cheek, and Constance felt a warm tear plash on her hand. This was quite another Myra from the one she thought she knew, and she said as much. "We're all puzzles, Connie dear, and the answers to most of us have been lost; but, do you know, I can't help crying a little with you for this poor fellow. Just to think of him lying there with no one within a thousand miles to care the least little bit about it. And if you are right--if it is Mr. Bartrow's friend--it's so much the more pitiful. The world is poorer when such men leave it." "Why, Myra! What do you know about him?" "Nothing more than you do--or as much. But surely you haven't forgotten what Mr. Bartrow told us." "About his helping Mr. Lansdale?"