"Well," was his answer, "when you begin with a paradox like that it is evident that I couldn't go on without getting into a discussion darker than the darkness of Egypt. I'd rather just talk about common everyday things. Where shall we go?" "I want to go to the North End. There is an old woman there that I thought of visiting. I had trouble with her husband the other day; he threw her down and hurt her." "What sort of trouble?" "He struck me, and we had a sort of struggle. He wasn't sober." "Were you on the street?" "No; in his room. I--I broke in." "Broke in?" "Yes." Ashe hesitated, and then added: "Mrs. Fenton was there, and he tried to rob her." "Mrs. Fenton? Why didn't you tell me about it? When was it?" "The day before I went down home. You weren't here, you know. There was not much to tell." Maurice questioned eagerly, and his friend related briefly what had happened. "Why, Phil, you're a hero!" Wynne exclaimed. "You've quite taken the wind out of my sails. I counted for something of an adventurer simply by having been in a smash-up; but you rushed in and had a real adventure. I never thought of you as a defender of dames." The other turned toward him a face contracted with a look of pain. "Don't, Maurice," he protested. "I can't joke about it. It was not anything to be proud of; and nobody knows better than I how far I am from being a hero." "Oh, you're modest, of course. That's like you; but I call it stunning. Mrs. Fenton must have admired you tremendously." "Do you suppose she did?" Philip demanded impetuously. Then his voice altered. "Oh, she knows me too well!" he added. The intense bitterness of his tone gave Maurice a shock. "Phil!" cried he. His companion apparently understood the thought which lay behind the exclamation. He dropped his head, and for a little distance they walked in silence. "I may as well tell you," Ashe said in a moment. "It is true, what you guess. I--I have been thinking of her more than was right. That is one reason why I am glad to get back to the Clergy House." "To give her up?" "She was not mine to give up." "But do you mean not to try to--Oh, Phil, doesn't it ever come to you that all this monkish business is a mistake? We were a couple of foolish boys that didn't know what we were about when we went into it; and"-- Ashe turned and looked at him with eyes full of reproach, and of almost despairing determination. "Is that the way you help me?" he asked. Maurice drew a long, deep breath, and set his strong jaw with a resolve not to abandon so easily the endeavor to bring his friend out of his trouble. It hardly occurred to him for the moment that it was his own cause that he was defending. "Phil," he persisted, "isn't it possible that after all we may be wrong in making ourselves wiser than the church by taking vows that are not required?" "Do you suppose that the devil has forgotten to say that to me over and over again?" was the response.