He had begun quietly, but as his thought mastered him his face had flushed, his eyes had glowed, and he had stood up and his words had come out with all the passion of his soul. Helen's eyes had not for an instant shifted from his; her's too were aglow, and glow was in her cheeks. For several moments after he had stopped she gazed at him with something that was very like awe; then she said, barely above a whisper: "You are going to do it!" "No, no," David returned quickly, bitterly. "I have merely builded out of words the shape of an impossible dream. Look at what I dream; and then look at me, a janitor!--look at my record!" "You are going to do it!" she repeated, her voice vibrant with belief. "The dream is not impossible. You are doing something towards its fulfilment now--the boy, you know. You are going to grow above your record, and above this position--far above! You are going to grow into great things. What you have been saying has been to me a prophecy of that." He grew warmer and warmer under her words--under the gaze of her brown eyes glowing into his--under the disclosure made by her left hand, on which he had seen there was no engagement ring. Her praise, her sympathy, her belief, thrilled him; and his purpose, set free in words, had given him courage, had lifted him up. As from a swift, dizzy growth, he felt strong, big. A burning impulse swept into him to tell her his innocence. For a moment his innocence trembled on his lips. But the old compelling reasons for silence rushed forward and joined battle with the desire of his love. His hands clenched, his body tightened, he stared at her tensely. At length he drew a deep breath, swallowed with difficulty. "May the prophecy come true!" his dry lips said. "It will!" She studied him thoughtfully for a minute or more. "Something has been occurring to me and I'd like to talk to you about it." She rose. "But I must be going. Won't you walk with me to the car, and let me talk on the way?" A minute later they were in the street, from which the day had all but faded and into which the shop-windows and above them the tier on tier of home-windows, were stretching their meagre substitute. David's blood was leaping through him, and in him were the lightness and the all-conquering strength of youth. The crisp winter air that thrust its sting into many of the stream of home-coming workers, tinglingly pricked him with the joy of living. "Have you thought again of writing?" she asked. "About as much as a man who has leaped from a house-top to try his wings, thinks again of flying." "I am speaking seriously. If the impulse to write should return, would you have time for writing?" "I think I could manage three or four hours a day." "Then why not try?" "The ground where one alights is so hard, Miss Chambers!"