She laughed and leaned over, a little afraid of the height, but desiring, she knew not why, to hear him talk. "You will not look Time in the face, then?" she said; "or does the bell of Time speak to you? I know people in France who always cross themselves when the clock chimes the hour." "The bells chime eternity--oh, yes. Time rarely laughs if it is not ironically. Here's a clock which tries to tell all the world how a brave man died. Time passed him by, but returns twice a day to have a look at him. The dirt of nearly a hundred years is cast upon his monument by Time. The ages used to be cleaner, Lady Evelyn. Nowadays we trample mud on every tomb. There is always an 'if' for the best of our friends." "Meaning that some disappointment has made a cynic of you, Mr. Ord?" "Perhaps, I cannot tell you. What is the good of ideals in this twentieth century? We have learned to scoff at simple things, faith, honesty, even courage. Rich men try to believe that they were never poor and the poor believe that they are rich--and go through the Bankruptcy Court accordingly. I could do great work in the world, but my enemy is an estimate. A man no longer builds a temple to the glory of God; he builds it to the memory of John Snooks, hog-merchant. Most of our ailments are the penalty of soullessness. If we lived and strived toward an end, the mind would not smart so often as the body. That saps our courage as well. I can work upon a scaffold like this because I have the past all round about me. But directly I cease to work I become a coward. Time is dangerous because Time is truth; one of the few truths our modern life permits us to recognize." "Then you do really believe that the old glory of achievement lingers somewhere?" "In the imagination of men who would be artists but remain the servants of Mammon. Let me interrupt you to beg a favor. Your arm is shifting the rope and if it gave way----" "The rope--the one I am leaning against? Does that go down to your scaffolding? I never noticed it." "There is no damage done," he said quietly; "please pull it down over the stone-work. No, hardly that way. Let me come up and show you." A short ladder led up from the scaffold to the roof of the clock tower. The foothold of planks was held up by stout ropes wound about the embrasures of the parapets. Unconsciously as she talked to him, Evelyn had shifted the right-hand rope from its place and Gavin's heart leaped when he perceived that in another instant boards and man and ladder must go headlong to the stone terrace below. In truth, the climax came while the light words were still upon his lips, and the rope, slipping away from the girl's weak hand, the scaffold swung out in an instant and Gavin was left above the abyss, his fingers twined about the second rope and his feet vainly seeking a hold against the time-worn stone.