"I want to tell you how glad I am. I suppose I must be a sort of father to her now, and I tell you that I would n't give her to another man in the world but you. You 're the only one worthy of her." He pressed the big hand. "You 're the one man who can make her happy," he ran on. "You can give her some of the things she 's been cheated out of. Why, when I was talking to her last night, her face looked like an angel's as I spoke of you. It is you who makes it easier for her to forget all the past--even--even the blow. I knew what it was when I came home--that you 'd done even that for me--though she couldn't see it. You 've blotted out of her mind every dark day in her life!" "That is something, is n't it?" asked Donaldson almost pleadingly. "Something? Something? It's everything. Don't you see now that you can't go away?" "I see," he answered. "Well, then, give me your hand again. Sort of trembly, eh? But I 'll bet you sleep better the rest of the night. And don't you on your life let her know I told you. She 's proud as the devil. But she would have done the same for me. They say love is blind," he laughed excitedly, "but, Holy Smoke, this is the worst case of it I ever saw!" Donaldson lay passive. "Now," concluded Arsdale, "I 'll go back and see if I can sleep. Good night." Donaldson again lay flat on his back after Arsdale had gone. So he lay, not sleeping, merely enduring, until, almost imperceptibly at first, the dark about him began to dissolve. Then he rose, partly dressed, and sitting by the open window watched the East as the dawn stole in upon the sleeping city. It came to the attack upon the grim alleys, the shadows around buildings, the stealthy figures, like a royal host. A few gray outriders reconnoitred over the horizon line and sent scurrying to their hovels those who looked up at them from shifty eyes. Then came a vanguard in brighter colors with crimson penants who attacked the fields and broad thoroughfares; then the King's Own in scarlet jackets and wide sweeping banners, bronze tinted, who charged the smaller streets and factory roofs, and finally the brave array of all the dazzling host itself, who hurled their golden, sun-tipped lances into every nook and cranny, awaking to life all save those whose souls were dark within.