She made her confession--not the easy and formal confession of the strong, who need it most, but the frank probing question and full reply of the weak, who can profit by it least--and at its end she received not only the benediction that she traced to Heaven, but the shrewd advice that came direct from the big heart of a worldly-wise and beneficent man. "Thank you, father," she added to the words of the ritual, as she rose to go, "I'll do me best to stick it out, but times be when it's powerful hard." The experience had encouraged her, but, when she came at last into her barren home, there fell a blow that shook to its foundations the structure of hope which she had so briefly reared. On the bare table was a single sheet of paper, and on the paper was written: "Dear Katie:--I have gone away. There was no use in saying good-by, for that would only have hurt both of us, and I could not have made you see that I was right not to board here any longer at your expense, any more than you could make me see last night that you were right on your side. Pretty soon I'll come to see you and bring the money I owe you, but I can't ever pay you back all your other goodness, although I would give my right arm to do it. "Another thing. By the time you get this letter Hermann will be to see you at the store. I was around to Bellevue yesterday, and we kept it as a surprise for you that he was coming out to-day. I hope by this time you two will have fixed it all up; but if you haven't, well, I never talked to you about it much before, but I feel I must say something now, because I seem to know more about life than I used to: take him, Katie dear, for there are only horrors ahead for any girls like you and me if we don't marry. He's a fine man and you love him, and the two of you will do better together than you can do apart. "Now, good-by. Don't please bother to hunt for me--I won't be on picket-duty any more, but _I am all right_. "Lovingly, "CARRIE." Katie Flanagan put down the note. She went to the narrow window and gazed blindly at the unsightly wing of the tenement across the narrow court outside. "All right?" she said, the paper crumpling in her tightened hand. "All right? The poor girl's got no money an' no job. I know what she's thinking an' there's no good followin'. 'All right,' she says! Dear God, pity her: she means, 'all wrong'!" Katie felt too deeply for her lost comrade to think much, if at all, of that portion of the note which touched her own interest. Her eyes clouded; her shoulders shook; she fell upon her knees before the window-sill, and it was there that Hermann's strong arms went about her neck.