“It’s not masquerading. It’s real. I recognised you, and thought perhaps you’d care to know.” He slackened his pace imperceptibly, and she walked by his side. “You don’t seem to believe it,” she resumed. “I don’t tell lies. It’s the truth that has generally cursed me.” “Then why are you walking up and down here at this time of night?” “Doing rescue work.” “Have you rescued any one yet?” asked Joyce, with a touch of sarcasm. “No. I scarce expect to.” “Then why are you trying?” “Because it’s the beastliest thing I could think of doing,” she said, stopping abruptly, and facing him, as he turned, in the defiant way he remembered from the theatre days. “You ’re an odd girl,” he said. “You don’t suppose I wear this disgusting bonnet and get hustled by roughs and blackguarded by women because I like it! I haven’t been converted, and I don’t shriek out ‘Hallelujah,’ and I won’t,--but I earn an honest living at the Shelter during the day, and at night I come out. It’s the beastliest thing I can think of doing,” she repeated. “If I knew of anything beastlier I’d do it. I ’ve had flames inside me since I gave you away,--I’d have killed myself for you after,--and hell since I went on the streets,--but I think the other was worse. I ’ve learned what you felt like; now I’m trying to burn out the fire--” “Stop for a moment,” he said, with a queer catch in his throat. “Do you mean you are doing this for your own inner self?” “Yes,” she replied, her direct intuition divining the implied alternative. “I don’t know much about Jesus and my immortal soul. That ’ll come. I want one day to be able to remember that I loved you--without hating myself and feeling sick with the shame and the horror of it all. You may think me a silly fool if you like, but that’s why I’m doing it. Let us walk on. We need n’t attract attention.” This was wise; for more than one passer-by had turned round, struck by the two intent white faces. Joyce obeyed passively, but continued for some moments to look down upon her in great wonder. An idea, which he became dimly aware had been struggling for birth in the dark of his soul for the past two hours, dawned upon him amid a strange, exulting excitement. Suddenly he took her by the arm and held it very tightly. She looked up at him, astonished. “What is the matter with you?” “Do you know what you have done tonight?” he said, in a shaking voice. “You have shown me how to burn out my hell too. You have retrieved any wrong you have done me. If my forgiveness is worth having, you have it, from the depths of my soul.” He was strangely moved. In the impulse of his exaltation, he drew her quickly into the gloom of a doorway--the pavement was momentarily deserted--and kissed her. She uttered a little cry and shrank back. “Is that for forgiveness?” “Yes,” he cried; and then he broke from her abruptly, and went on along the pavement with great strides.