"And if we marry, we must simply make up our minds that the past is dead!" And suddenly Jim's heart grew lighter, and the black mood of the past hour seemed to drop. He stretched himself luxuriously and folded his arms. "If Julia isn't a hundred per cent, sweeter and better and finer than these friends of Babbie's, who go chasing about to bad plays and read all the rottenest books that are printed," he said, "then there's no such thing as a good woman! My little girl--I'm not half worthy of _her_, that's the truth!" "Hello, Jim!" said Gray Babcock, coming in from the theatre, and stretching his long cold hands over the dying fire. "We thought you might come in to-night. Hazzard and Tom Parley had a little party for Miss Manning, of the 'Dainty Duchess' Company, you know--awfully pretty girl, straight, too, they say. There were a couple of other girls, and Roy Grinell--things were just about starting up when I came away!" Jim rose, and kicked the scattered ends of a log toward the flame. "I've not got much use for Hazzard," he observed, frowning. Babcock gave a surprised and vacant laugh. "Gosh! I thought all you people were good friends!" "Hazzard's an ass," observed Jim irritably. "There are some things that aren't any too becoming to college kids--however, you can forgive them! But when it comes to an ass like Hazzard chasing to every beauty show, and taking good little girls to supper--" "Alice don't care a whoop what he does," Babcock remarked hastily. "Yes, so of course that makes everything all right," Jim said ironically. But Mr. Babcock was in no mood to be critical of tones. "Sure it does!" he agreed contentedly. And when Jim had disgustedly departed, he remained still staring into the fire, a pleased smile upon his face. Julia spent the next day in bed fighting a threatened nervous breakdown, and Jim came to see her at two o'clock, and they had a long and memorable talk, with Jim's chair drawn close to the couch, and the girl's lax hand in his own. She had not slept all night, she told him, and he suspected that she had spent much of the long vigil in tears. Tears came again as she begged a hundred times to set him free, but he quieted her at last, and the old tragedy that had risen to haunt them was laid. And if Julia felt a rush of blind gratitude and hope when they sealed their new compact with a kiss, Jim was no less happy--everything had come out wonderfully, and he loved Julia not less, but more than he had ever loved her. The facts of her life, whatever they had been, had made her what she was; now let them all be forgotten. "Still, you are not sorry I told you, Jim?" Julia asked.