Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank, and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it. As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent; his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost more pitiful than tears. At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he turned Davie quickly round, and said: "We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road--no, by heaven! though I die for it!" "Just a little further, Sandy." And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very well understood. "No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!" Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been going. Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand, they climbed the dark tenement stair together. Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!--so glad!" She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper. He understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and come out conqueror. The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of coffee and a bit of bread and bacon. Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and drank.