She did not tell him that she had cried over it in her dingy room or that at Paddock’s settlement house, where she had gone to help in the children’s entertainment, she had learned from the minister where he was, or that the knowledge that he was in a place of safety had been the real peace of her Christmas. “It was a lonely place up there in the mountains and the first night----” He had felt that he must tell her everything, but he could not do it; he could not confess how narrowly he had escaped taking himself out of life by the back door. Her own fine courage, the success now crowning her endeavour--these things taunted him; he could not tell her how near he had been to throwing down his sword in the face of the enemy. With courage, sincerity and industry she was storming the citadels of a world that had heaped favours upon him only to magnify the humiliation of his failures. He must speak with confidence of his to-morrows to this woman if he would hold her respect. “I’m going to try harder. I guess I’ve never tried at all. I’ve got a job: Walsh is going to take me into his office; you’ve seen him, he’s a grand old fellow. While you are off making your drawings I shall be trying to learn how to sell groceries. Isn’t that most uninteresting?” She bent toward him eagerly. “Oh, no, it is fine! It is just the right thing. I am glad--so glad!” His heart bounded as he saw how pleased she was--no cloud now on those violet seas; and she smiled that quick rare smile of hers. “Please don’t grow too famous to remember a poor struggling jobber in canned goods and such. You see, you’ve rather put it up to me to do something. I shan’t get very high--I couldn’t--but I’m going to do the best I can. A man I met up there in the hills--a minister--a priest, he would call himself, made me feel my lack of importance in the world in a new way. He said he thought the devil wouldn’t care for my soul--that I was a clumsy piece of Satan’s practice-work, not worth putting on exhibition in the hall of fame down below. That took the conceit out of me; I had imagined myself a superior article.” “Well, when you’re at work you won’t have time to think of such things,” she answered, not sanctioning his way of joking about it. “But I shall think of you every day, and I shall wonder where you are and how your work prospers; and sometimes I shall see you----” “We shall always be good friends, of course.” But he would not take warning of her words or her manner; this new career was drawing her away from him and the thought of losing her was intolerable. “If you haven’t taken that step, if you are still free, won’t you give me my chance?” “No, no! Please don’t spoil this evening for me; I know you don’t mean to be unkind--but you are!” “But why should you throw away your freedom; you owe something to yourself!” he pleaded. “See what has come to you; think of what you would lose if you let this imagined duty to Joe interfere with your success.”