Helen is silent as she sits down by the window which commands a view of the front walk. Time has dealt generously and kindly with her. The girlhood has ripened into the stately strong womanhood. Many suitors have come and gone, among them some noble gentlemen who have received their answers from her with sore hearts, but Helen still has not seen her ideal of the romantic days and her heart is yet--she says to herself--free--at least she has refused both wealth and high character for the vision she has cherished all these years of the nameless one who, so far, she says, has never appeared to her. And all through this testing, refining process of growth, she has developed into a spirit of rare strength and grace, of whom Paul and Esther have been increasingly proud. Two young men come briskly up the walk. Mrs. Douglas opens the door and rushes out on the porch as Helen rises to tell her they are coming. Walter laughingly lifts Esther off her feet as he kisses her and then turns to Helen. Evidently he has not broken his heart over that romance in the desert. First greetings over he announced Bauer just as Paul steps into the front room. "Professor Felix Bauer, F. R. G. S., F. S. S. K. L. G. X. Y. Z. and others. Isn't he great?" Esther simply says, "Felix, welcome. I do not know how to say 'professor.'" Bauer lifts her hands to his lips. Helen looks at him as if she were seeing some new vision at a distance. Felix Bauer smiles in the old way and says: "Mrs. Douglas, I don't care for these titles. I would gladly give a bushel of them for one kind word from Walter's mother." He looks at Helen as he speaks and Helen notes his clear, strong accent and the self-control and ease of a man who has met the world and looked it in the face without fear and without shame. It is only when they are seated at the table that Helen has opportunity to note Bauer's strong face and figure, and wonder at the transformation time and testing have made in him. He still speaks in the slow deliberate fashion of the other days, but he is a full grown man now, conscious of power and Helen has to readjust her picture of him as she last saw him. As the talk goes on, Paul's probing questions, aided by Walter and his mother, bring out the facts about Bauer which his own modesty would keep in the background. Sent to Berlin to make special studies of new methods in lighting, he had made the startling discovery of the formula of the fire fly's secret, and revolutionised the entire system of city lighting. He had been careless of wealth. Walter drops a hint of thousands given to pay off old family indebtedness, or charities aided, of new enterprises fostered until Bauer blushingly begs him to stop. "Really, Mr. Douglas, I am no millionaire as Walter would make out. Only I have been permitted to help some this great tuberculosis movement that has been a great joy to me."