"I know, I know! But I've had no feeling for three years. I've been like a frozen man, just drifting, trying to make both ends meet, my heart dead and my body full of pain. I'm just out of a hospital--two months in all." "David! Why didn't you let me know, or send for me?" "Oh, it was way out in Missouri. I was taken ill very suddenly at the hotel in St. Joseph and they moved me at once. There were two operations first and last, and I didn't know enough to feed myself most of the time." "Poor, poor Buddy! Did you have good care?" "The best. I had more than care. Ruth Bentley, the nurse that brought me back to life, made me see what a useless creature I was." Some woman's instinct stirred in Letty at a new note in her brother's voice and a new look in his face. She braced herself for his next words, sure that they would open a fresh chapter. The door and the window were closed now, the shades pulled down, the fire low; the hour was ripe for confidences. "You see, Letty,"--and David cleared his throat nervously, and looked at the coals gleaming behind the Hessian soldiers,--"it's a time for a thorough housecleaning, body, mind, and soul, a long illness is; and Miss Bentley knew well enough that all was wrong with me. I mentioned my unhappy marriage and told her all about you, but I said nothing about the children." "Why should you?" asked Letty, although her mind had leaped to the reason already. "Well, I was a poor patient in one of the cheapest rooms; broken in health, without any present means of support. I wanted to stand well with her, she had been so good to me, and I thought if she knew about the twins she wouldn't believe I could ever make a living for three." "Still less for _four_!" put in Letty, with an irrepressible note of teasing in her tone. She had broken the ice. Like a torrent set free, David dashed into the story of the last two months and Ruth Bentley's wonderful influence. How she had recreated him within as well as without. How she was the best and noblest of women, willing to take a pauper by the hand and brace him up for a new battle with life. "Strength appeals to me," confessed David. "Perhaps it's because I am weak; for I'm afraid I am, a little!" "Be careful, Davy! Eva was strong!" David shuddered. He remembered a strength that lashed and buffeted and struck and overpowered. "Ruth is different," he said. "'Out of the strong came forth sweetness' used to be one of Parson Larrabee's texts. That's Ruth's kind of strength.--Can I--will you let me bring her here to see you, Letty,--say for New Year's? It's all so different from the last time I asked you. Then I knew I was bringing you nothing but sorrow and pain, but Ruth carries her welcome in her face." The prop inside of Letty wavered unsteadily for a moment and then stood in its accustomed upright position. "Why not?" she asked. "It's the right thing to do; but you must tell her about the children first."