He had always been a fine-looking fellow, and the training at Annapolis had done him good. He was no mere youth now, but a man, bronzed and bearded, and bearing himself like one who knew what he wanted and meant to get it. She realized that the woman he chose to guard from the world would be well shielded. A weary woman might find rest under the shelter of his stalwart protection. Involuntarily she contrasted the man she had promised to marry with the man she had married--the manly strength of the one with the gentle weakness of the other. Then she blushed again, for this seemed to her disloyalty to the dead. Jim had been very good to her always; he was the father of her child; he never did any wrong. But the thought returned again--perhaps if he had had more force of character the child need not have died as it did. Brother Jackman was rattling along glibly, but Sister Miller did not heed him. She did not hear him even. She did not hear anything distinctly during the rest of the service. She rose to her feet with the rest of them, and she sat down again automatically, and she knelt like one in a trance. When the meeting was over and the people began to disperse she saw that he did not move. He stood there silently, waiting for her to come to him, ready to bear her away. Without a word Sister Miller knew what it was her old lover wanted; he wanted to pick up their love-story where it had been broken off four years before. When the hall was nearly empty he started towards her. She turned to the gray-haired woman by her side. "Tell me what to do," she cried. "He is coming to take me away with him." Sister Willetts saw the young man advancing slowly, as those last to go made a path for him. "Is he in love with you, too?" she asked. "Yes," the younger woman answered. "And do you love him?" "Yes--at least, I think so. Oh yes!" "And is he a good man?" was the last question. "Yes, indeed," came the prompt reply, "the best man I ever knew!" The sturdy figure was drawing nearer and the elder woman rose. "If you love him better than you love your work with us, go to him, in God's name," she said. "We seek no unwilling workers here. If you cannot give yourself to the service joyfully, putting all else behind you, go in peace--and may the blessing of God be with you!" She bent forward and kissed the younger woman and left her, as Dexter Standish came and stood before her. "Margaret," he said, firmly, "I have come for you." Without a word she stepped down from the platform and went with him. When they came to the door a hansom happened to pass and he called it. "Where are you taking me?" she asked, glad to be under the shelter of his devotion and ready to relinquish all right to decide upon her future for herself. "To my mother," he answered, as he lifted her into the vehicle. "She's at a hotel here. She'll be glad to see you." "Will she?" the girl asked, doubtfully.