"Stebbins! Would Stebbins go? I don't believe you!" he cried eagerly. "He told me he would," said Dillon. "Why on earth should he?" "He's a friend of mine," the other answered simply. Bob twisted his lips together a moment, while the muscles around his mouth worked. Suddenly he gave way and broke into sobbing speech. "You're a good fellow, Dill--I'm not worth it--truly, I'm not! I've been a beast--and the college and all that--you all despise me--but so do I!" He gripped the chair, turning his handsome, tear-stained face up to his friend's. How the straight, thin nose, the black-lashed blue eyes, the white forehead reflected Helena! Dillon could have kissed him for the likeness. "Will you, Bob? Will you? We'll all stand by you!" "I will, Dillon, I will, so help me--Bob!" he smiled through wet lashes. "You hang on, and I will! But look out for that rector--he's running a close second, and Aunt Sarah's backing him for all she's worth!" He was smiling wisely now; the strain was lifted, and he was almost himself again. Dillon scowled. "He takes her slumming, you know, and, say, you ought to hear him give it to Aunt Sarah about knowing the condition the poor devils are in before you deal out the tracts, you know. He wants the good ladies and gentlemen to come and see--that way, you know." "He's right enough there," Dillon said constrainedly, "and I suppose he's better for her than I'd be--no, by George, he's not! Bob, I tell you, I know her better than he does--I tell you I've waited five years--Oh, Lord, I can't talk any more about it!" They went out arm in arm, the boy warm and friendly, proud of his confidence and full of high resolve, Dillon impassive outwardly, but conscious of great stakes. To say, in four short weeks, to those wide, blue eyes, a little scornful, perhaps, but with so sweet, so pure a scorn! "_The strain is over: he is safe; can you not trust me now?_" His heart leaped and grew large at the thought. It was so like Helena, this service, half-sacred in her mother's trust, half-shy in maidenly delaying. "She is afraid of me!" he thought exultingly--indeed, she admitted as much. "You and your set--one knows you, and yet one doesn't," she said to him. "You seem so still, so satisfied, so sure about life--there seems to be so much you don't tell! Do you see what I mean? It frightens me. There is so much we don't think the same about, Lawrence--so much of you I don't know! I wanted, when I married, to come into a--a peace. I wanted it to be--don't laugh--like my Confirmation: do you think it would, if I married you? Do you, Lawrence?" He turned his head away. A vision of her, those ten short years ago, in white procession down the aisle of Easter lilies, rapt and aloof, flashed before him. For one sweet second he saw her in fancy, again in white, but trembling now, and near him----