"Oh, dearest child," he begged, "I don't know about the peace--how can I? The things are so different! But we could be happy--I know we could! Is peace all you want, sweetheart, all?" Caught by his eyes, her own wavered and dropped; a flood of red rose to her hair. "Don't, Lawrence, you frighten me! When you look like that--Oh, wait a month, only this month, Lawrence, till Bob has gone and we're sure!" "You want that more than anything else, don't you? You'd give up anything----" Her eyes grew soft, then stern, and looked clearly into his. "Anything in the world," she said instantly, "so that mamma could see he was--safe. I am all Bob has. Oh, if he can only----" "He shall," Dillon assured her stoutly, "he shall, this time!" And indeed it seemed that he would. He seemed awakened to the strongest effort they had known him to make. His uncle's offer, grimly set for one month from its date, or never, took on for him a superstitious colour of finality. He was convinced that it was his last chance. "If I'm downed this time, Dill, it's all up," he would say, wearily, as they paced the endless city blocks together, arm in arm, under the night. "If I can keep up till the yacht--how long is it, a week?--then, something tells me I'm all right. I swear it's so. I never felt that before. But if I don't"--he paused ominously. "There's always one way out," he added. "You will break Helena's heart, then." "Heart? I don't think she has one. If she had, you'd have had her long ago. Oh, no, I sha'n't. She'll go into that beastly retreat for a while, and then she'll marry that crazy rector-man and go about saving souls. You'll see." The week was nearly up. The yacht was ready in the harbour. The boy, though, showed the strain, and Dillon, fearful of too much dogging him, and warned by his furtive eyes and narrowed lips, called in Stebbins to the rescue. "I can't have him hate me, Steb," he explained. "We're both of us worn pretty thin. If you could give up to-day and to-night----" They shook hands. "It's every minute, practically, you know, Steb," he added doubtfully, "it's a good deal." "Oh, get on!" the other broke in, with a good-natured shoulder clap. As he swung the glass door of the club behind him, Dillon ran down a messenger-boy, bulging with yellow envelopes. The boy glanced at him questioningly. "Mist' Wardwell, Adams, Stebbins, 'r Waite?" he inquired, holding out four telegrams as he slipped in. Dillon shook his head, and walked down the steps. One more night and she would be all to win, no promise between, no scruple that a lover might not smother. Shame on him if he could not woo more persuasively than a mystical evangelist! In the evening he would see her; the precious little note lay warm over his heart.