"She is everything a lady ought to be, madam, and, oh, I must say my heart ached for her, too, for I could see how she felt about him. She is full of spirit. She is the kind that would fight for a man to the last ditch and drop of blood. But, oh, madam, it seemed so sad! There he was in a farmer's clothes, his hands as hard as stone, and she--why, madam, he treated her like she was a princess of royal rank, and all the time with that old, sad look he used to have when he was scolding himself to me after one of his little sprees around town. Almost the last thing he said to me, madam, was that when he had helped her all he could he intended to slip away, for her own good, and take up his life somewhere else among strangers. It was then, madam, I assure you, that I almost lost my religion. I've been taught, madam, from my mother's knee--and she is a saint, if one ever lived--I say I've been taught that our Saviour died to help men who repent, and there was Mr. Charles bowed down like that without a hand held out to him. He gave up all he loved here--you, the little girl--his 'Sunbeam,' as he called her down there--and his brother, and now, when he has found some one that he loves, he must give her up also and start to roving again. I shed tears. I couldn't help it, and it moved him. I could see that. We were in my room at the hotel. His face turned dark as he sat there on my bed trying to be calm. He stood up and shook himself and smiled. 'Mike,' he said, 'nothing counts that we do for ourselves. It is only by forgetting ourselves and helping others that we accomplish anything worth while.'" "Thank you, Michael, I'll see you again soon," Celeste said, moving toward the door. CHAPTER XXXI "'Nothing counts that we do for ourselves,'" Celeste repeated, as she was ascending the stairs to her daughter's room. At the door she paused and listened for a moment, then, softly turning the bolt, she entered the room. The blinds were down to exclude the sunlight which was growing warm. On the great white bed Ruth lay asleep. One plump bare arm, shapely wrist, and hand lay against the mass of golden hair. Celeste stood at the foot of the bed, and with a mother's parched thirst drank from the picture before her eyes. How beautiful the child was! How exquisite the patrician brow, the neck, the contour of nose, mouth, and chin! How temperamentally sensitive, imaginative, and high-strung! How proud of her father, of his social and financial standing and his old name of Puritan respectability! How affectionate she was with her mother, how adored by the servants and by her absent uncle! "She is all I have now!" thought Celeste, as she choked down a sob, "Can I do it--am I able to do it?"