"And sit down under him, while he looms up into God knows where?"

"Well, wouldn't that be your idea?"

"Can't say that it is. My idea is that when I take my rights and keep them, I'm as big as any one."

"Quite so; as big as any one—who takes his rights and keeps them. That's very true."

Ashley stopped, one hand behind him, the other supporting him as he leaned on the desk. "And that's what I propose to do," he said, aggressively.

"It's a very high ideal."

"I propose to accept the status quo without asking any more questions."

"I should think that would be a very good plan. A wise man—one of the wisest—wrote, apropos of well-disposed people who were seeking a standard of conduct: 'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.' I should think you'd have every reason for that kind of self-approval."

"Do you mean that, sir? or are you—trying it on?"

"I'm certainly not trying it on. The man who takes his rights and keeps them can be amply justified. If there's a counsel of perfection that goes beyond that standard—well, it isn't given to all men to receive it."

"Then you think it isn't given to me. You'd put me down as a good sort of chap who comes in second best."

"What makes you think I should do that?"

"Because—because—hang it all! If I let this fellow keep ahead of me—why, I should come in second best."

"You say keep ahead of me. Do you think he's ahead of you now?"

Ashley straightened himself. He looked uncomfortable. "He's got a pull, by Jove! He made that journey to France—and cracked me up to the Marquise—and wheedled her round—when all the while he must have known that he was hammering nails into his own coffin. He did it, too, after I'd insulted him and we'd had a row."

"Oh, that's nothing. To a fellow like him that sort of thing comes easy."

"It wouldn't come easy to me, by Jove!"

"Then it would be all the more to your credit, if you ever did anything of the kind."

The Englishman bounded away. Once more he began to pace the floor restlessly. The old man took his pipe from a tray, and his tobacco-pouch from a drawer. Having filled the bowl, with meditative leisure he looked round for a match. "Got a light?"

Ashley struck a vesta on the edge of his match-box and applied it to the old man's pipe.

"Should you say," he asked, while doing it, "that I ought to attempt anything in that line?"

"Certainly not—unless you want to—to get ahead."

"I don't want to stay behind."

"Then, it's for you to judge, my son."

There was something like an affectionate stress on the two concluding monosyllables. Ashley backed off, out of the lamplight.

"It's this way," he explained, stammeringly; "I'm a British officer and gentleman. I'm a little more than that—since I'm a V.C. man—and a fellow—dash it all, I might as well say it!—I'm a fellow they've got their eye on—in the line of high office, don't you know? And I can't—I simply can't—let a chap like that make me a present of all his chances—"

"Did he have any?"

Ashley hesitated. "Before God, sir, I don't know—but I'm inclined to think—he had. If so, I suppose they're of as much value to him as mine to me."

"But not of any more."

He hesitated again. "I don't know about that. Perhaps they are. The Lord knows I don't say that lightly, for mine are—Well, we needn't go into that. But I've got a good deal in my life, and I don't imagine that he, poor devil—"

"Oh, don't worry. A rich soil is never barren. When nothing is planted in it, Nature uses it for flowers."

Ashley answered restively. "I see, sir, your sympathies are all on his side."

"Not at all. Quite the contrary. My certainties are on his side. My sympathies are on yours."

"Because you think I need them."

"Because I think you may."

"In case I—"

"In case you should condemn yourself in the thing you're going to allow."

"But what's it to be?"

"That's for you to settle with yourself."

He was silent a minute. When he spoke it was with some conviction. "I should like to do the right thing, by Jove!—the straight thing—if I only knew what it was."

"Oh, there'll be no trouble about that. In the Street called Straight, my son, there are lights to show the way."

* * * * *

"Rum old cove," was Ashley's comment to himself as he went back to Boston. "Got an answer to everything."

From the hotel he telephoned an excuse to Olivia for his unceremonious departure from Tory Hill. "Had an upset," was the phrase by which he conveyed his apologies, leaving it to her to guess the nature of his mischance. As she showed no curiosity on the point, he merely promised to come to luncheon in the morning.

During his dinner he set himself to think, though, amid the kaleidoscopic movement of the hotel dining-room, he got little beyond the stage of "mulling." Such symptoms of decision as showed themselves through the evening lay in his looking up the dates of sailing of the more important liners, and the situation of the Carral country on the map. He missed, however, the support of his principle to be Rupert Ashley at his best. That guiding motto seemed to have lost its force owing to the eccentricities of American methods of procedure. If he was still Rupert Ashley, he was Rupert Ashley sadly knocked about, buffeted, puzzled, grown incapable of the swift judgment and prompt action which had hitherto been his leading characteristics.

He was still beset by uncertainties when he went out to Waverton next morning. Impatient for some form of action, he made an early start. On the way he considered Rodney Temple's words of the previous afternoon, saying to himself: "In the Street called Straight there are lights to show the way, by Jove! Gad! I should like to know where they are."



Nevertheless, it had a clarifying effect on his vision to find, on walking into the drawing-room at Tory Hill, Miss Guion seated in conversation with Peter Davenant. As he had the advantage of seeing them a second before they noticed him, he got the impression that their conversation was earnest, confidential. Olivia was seated in a corner of the sofa, Davenant in a low chair that gave him the appearance of being at her feet.

It was exactly the stimulus Ashley needed to bring his faculties into action. He was at once in possession of all his powers. The feeling inspired by the sight of them together transformed him on the instant into the quick, shrewd, diplomatic officer in whom he recognized himself. It was a feeling too complicated to be called jealousy, though jealousy might have been in it as an ingredient pang. If so, it was entirely subordinate to his new sense—or rather his old sense—of being equal to the occasion. As he crossed the room he felt no misgiving, no hesitation. Neither did he need to forecast, however rapidly, his plan of speech or action, since he knew that in urgent cases it was always given him. If he had to define this sudden confidence he might have said that Rupert Ashley at his best had been restored to life again, but even that would not have expressed the fullness of his consciousness of power.

He nodded to Davenant before shaking hands with Miss Guion. "Hello! Back again?"

Davenant got up from his low chair with some embarrassment. Ashley bowed over Olivia's hand with unusual courtliness. He seated himself in the other corner of the sofa, as one who had a right to the place.

"I had to come East on business," Davenant explained, at once.

Olivia hastened to corroborate this statement. "Aunt Vic wanted Mr. Davenant to come—to settle up all the things—"

"And I had another reason," Davenant interrupted, nervously. "I was just beginning to tell Miss Guion about it when you came in. I've a job out there—in my work—that would suit Mr. Guion. It would be quite in his line—legal adviser to a company—and would give him occupation. He'd be earning money, and wouldn't feel laid aside; and if he was ill I could look after him as well as any one. I—I'd like it."

Olivia looked inquiringly at Ashley. Her eyes were misty.

"Hadn't you better talk to him about it?" Ashley said.

"I thought I'd better speak to you and Miss Guion first. I understand you've offered to—to take him—"

"I shouldn't interfere with what suited him better, in any case. By the way, how did you like the Louisiana?"

Davenant's jaw dropped. His blue eyes were wide with amazement. It was Olivia who undertook to speak, with a little air of surprise that Ashley should make such an odd mistake.

"Mr. Davenant wasn't on the Louisiana. It was Aunt Vic. Mr. Davenant has just come from the West. You do that by train."

"Of course he was on the Louisiana. Landed on the—let me see!—she sailed again yesterday!—landed on the 20th, didn't you?"

"No, no," Olivia corrected again, smiling. "That was the day Aunt Vic landed. You're getting every one mixed."

"But they came together," Ashley persisted. "He brought her. Didn't you?"

The look on Olivia's face frightened Davenant. He got up and stood apologetically behind his chair. "You'll have to forgive me, Miss Guion," he stammered. "I—I deceived you. I couldn't think of anything else to do."

She leaned forward, looking up at him. "But I don't know what you did, as it is. I can't understand—what—what any one is saying."

"Then I'll tell you, by Jove! All the time you thought he was out there at Michigan he was over in France, following up the Marquise. Tracked her like a bloodhound, what? Told her the whole story—how we'd got to a deadlock—and everything. Made her think that unless she came and bailed us out we'd be caught there for the rest of our lives."

Olivia's eyes were still lifted to Davenant's. "Is that true?"

"It's true, by Jove!—true as you live. What's more, he cracked me up as though I was the only man alive—said that when it came to a question of who was worthy—worthy to marry you—he wasn't fit to black my boots."

"No," Davenant cried, fiercely. "There was no question of me."

"Bosh! Bosh, my good fellow! When a man does what you've done there's no question of any one but him."

The color was hot in Davenant's cheeks, but he himself could not have told whether it came from astonishment or anger. "Since Colonel Ashley knows so well what happened, I shall leave him to tell it."

He was about to make his escape, when Olivia stopped him. "No, no. Wait—please wait. Tell me why you did it."

"I'll tell you," Ashley broke in. He spoke with a kind of nervous jauntiness. "I'll tell you, by Jove! We had a row. I called him a cad. I called him a damned cad. There was a damned cad present on that occasion—only—I didn't hit the right nail on the head. But that's not what I'm coming to. He struck me. He struck me right in the teeth, by Jove! And when a man strikes you, it's an insult that can only be wiped out by blood. Very well; he's offered it—his blood. He didn't wait for me to draw it. I suppose he thought I wouldn't go in for the heroic. So of his own accord he went over there to France and shed his heart's blood, in the hope that I might overlook his offence. All right, old chap; I overlook it."

With a laugh Ashley held his hand up toward Davenant, who ignored it.

"Miss Guion," Davenant said, huskily, "Colonel Ashley is pleased to put his own interpretation on what was in itself a very simple thing. You mayn't think it a very creditable thing, but I'll tell you just what happened, and you can draw your own conclusions. I went over to France, and saw your aunt, the Marquise, and asked her to let me have my money back. That's the plain truth of it. She'll tell you so herself. I'd heard she was very fond of you—devoted to you—and that she was very rich and generous—and so I thought, if I told her exactly how matters stood, it would be a good chance to—to—recoup myself for—the loan."

Ashley sprang up with another laugh. "He does that well, doesn't he?" he said to Olivia. "Come along, old boy," he added, slipping his arm through Davenant's. "If I let you stay here you'll perjure your very soul."

Davenant allowed himself to be escorted to the door. Over his shoulder Ashley called back to Olivia: "Fellows are never good friends till after they've had a fight."



XXIV

When Ashley, after pushing Davenant gently out into the hall, returned to Olivia, she was standing by the mantelpiece, where the five K'ang-hsi vases had been restored to their place in honor of the Marquise.

"Rum chap, isn't he?" Ashley observed. "So awfully queer and American. No Englishman would ever have taken a jaunt like that—after the old lady—on another chap's behalf. It wouldn't go down, you know."

Olivia, leaning on the mantelpiece, with face partially turned from him, made no reply.

He allowed some minutes to pass before saying: "When I asked him how he liked the Louisiana I wanted to know. I'm thinking of taking her on her next trip home."

She turned slightly, lifting her eyes. There was a wonderful light in them, and yet a light that seemed to shine from afar. "Wouldn't that be rather soon?"

"It would give me time for all I want. Now that I'm here I'd better take a look at New York and Washington, and perhaps get a glimpse of your South. I could do that in three weeks."

She seemed to have some difficulty in getting her mind to follow his words. "I don't think I understand you."

There was a smile on his lips as he said: "Don't you infer anything?"

"If I inferred anything, it would be that you think of going home—alone."

"Well, that's it."

She turned fully round. For a long minute they stood staring at each other. Time and experience seemed both to pass over them before she uttered the one word: "Why?"

"Isn't it pretty nearly—self-evident?"

She shook her head. "Not to me."

"I'm surprised at that. I thought you would have seen how well we'd played our game, and that it's—up."

"I don't see—not unless you're trying to tell me that you've—that your feelings have undergone a—"

He was still smiling rather mechanically, though he tugged nervously at the end of his horizontal mustache. "Wouldn't it be possible—now that everything has turned out so—so beautifully—wouldn't it be possible to let the rest go without—without superfluous explanations?"

"I'm ready to do everything you like; but I can't help being surprised."

"That must be because I've been more successful than I thought I was. I fancied that—when I saw how things were with you—you saw how they were with me—and that—"

"Saw how they were with you? Do you mean?—No, you can't mean!—it isn't—Drusilla?"

Since Drusilla would do as well as another, he still stood smiling. She clasped her hands. Her face was all aglow.

"Oh, I should be so glad! It's only within a few days that I've seen—how it was—with—"

He hastened to interrupt her, though he had no idea of what she was going to say. "Then so long as you do see—"

"Oh yes; I—I begin to see. I'm afraid I've been very stupid. You've been so kind—so noble—when all the while—"

"We won't discuss that, what? We won't discuss each other at all. Even if you go your way and I go mine, we shall still be—"

He didn't finish, because she dropped again to the sofa, burying her face in the cushions. It was the first time he had ever seen her give way to deep emotion. If he had not felt so strong to carry the thing through to the end, he would have been unnerved. As it was, he sat down beside her, bending over her bowed head. He made no attempt to touch her.

"I can't bear it," he could hear her panting. "I can't bear it."

"What is it that you can't bear? The pain?" She nodded without raising her head.

"Or the happiness?" he asked, gently. She nodded again.

"That is," he went on, "pain for me—and happiness about—about—the other chap."

She made the same mute sign of affirmation.

"Then, perhaps, that's just as it should be."

* * * * *

When Ashley got out to the road Davenant was still standing by the gate, uncertain whether to turn back to the house or go away. Ashley continued to smile jauntily. If he was white about the temples and sallow in the cheeks there was no one to notice it.

"Miss Guion wants to see you," he announced to Davenant. "It's about that matter of her father. I dare say you'll pull it off. No, not just now," he added, as Davenant started to go up the driveway. "She—she's busy. Later will do. Say this afternoon. Come along with me. I've got something to tell you. I'm on my way to the Temples'."

Once more Ashley slipped his arm through Davenant's, but they walked on in silence. The silence continued till they were on the Embankment, when Ashley said: "On second thoughts, I sha'n't tell you what I was going to just now."

"That's all right," Davenant rejoined; and no more was said till they reached Rodney Temple's door.

"Good-by." Ashley offered his hand. "Good-by. You're a first-rate sort. You deserve everything you're—you're coming in for."

Davenant could only wring the proffered hand wonderingly and continue on his way.

Inside the house Ashley asked only for Drusilla. When she came to the drawing-room he refused to sit down. He explained his hurry, on the ground that he was on his way to Boston to take the earliest possible train for New York.

"Oh yes. That's it," he said, in answer to her dumb looks of inquiry. "It couldn't go on, you see. You must have known it—in spite of what you told me last night. You've been an out-and-out good pal. You've cheered me up more than a bit all the time I've been here. If it hadn't been for you—Oh yes, I'm hit; but not hit so hard that I can't still go on fighting—"

"Not in the Carral country, I hope."

"N-no. On second thoughts that would be only running away. I'm not going to run away. Wounds as bad as mine have healed with a bit of nursing, and—Well, good-by. Say good-by to your father and mother for me, will you?—especially to your governor. Rum old chap, but sound—sound as—as Shakespeare and the Bible. Good-by once more. Meet again some time."

It was at the door, to which she accompanied him, that he said: "By the way, when are you coming home?"

She called all her dignity to her aid in order to reply lightly: "Oh, I don't know. Not for ages and ages. Perhaps not at all. I may stay permanently over here. I don't know."

"Oh, I say—"

"In any case I'm here for the winter."

"Oh, but I say, by Jove! That's forever. You'll be back before spring?"

She weakened in spite of herself. "I couldn't possibly leave till after Christmas."

"Christmas! It's the end of November now. Well, that's not so bad. Expect to be in Southsea some time early in the new year. See you then."

He had gone down the steps when he turned again. Drusilla was still standing in the open doorway.

"It's awfully queer, but I feel as if—you'll laugh, I know—but I feel as if I'd been kept from the commission of a crime. Funny, isn't it? Well, I'll be off. See you in Southsea not later than the middle of January. Good-by again; and don't forget my message to your governor."



XXV

It was late in the afternoon when Davenant reappeared at Tory Hill, having tramped the streets during most of the time since leaving Ashley in the morning. He was nervous. He was even alarmed. He had little clue to Olivia's judgment on his visit to the Marquise, and he found Ashley's hints mysterious.

It was reassuring, therefore, to have her welcome him with gentle cordiality into the little oval sitting-room, where he found her at her desk. She made him take the most comfortable seat, while she herself turned partially round, her arm stretched along the back of her chair. Though the room was growing dim, there was still a crimson light from the sunset.

He plunged at once into the subject that had brought him, explaining the nature of the work her father would be called upon to do. It would be easy work, though real work, just what would be within his powers. There would be difficulties, some arising from the relationship of the Massachusetts bar to that of Michigan, and others on which he touched more lightly; but he thought they could all be overcome. Even if that proved to be impossible, there were other things he knew of that Mr. Guion could do—things quite in keeping with his dignity.

"I've already talked to papa about it," she said. "He's very grateful—very much touched."

"There's no reason for that. I should like his company. I'm—I'm fond of him."

For a few minutes she seemed to be pondering, absently. "There's something I should like to ask you," she said, at last.

"Yes, Miss Guion? What is it?"

"When people have done so much harm as—as we've done, do you think it's right that they should get off scot-free—without punishment?"

"I don't know anything about that, Miss Guion. It seems to me I'm not called upon to know. Where we see things going crooked we must butt in and help to straighten them. Even when we've done that to the best of our powers, I guess there'll still be punishment enough to go round. Outside the law-courts, that's something we don't have to look after."

Again she sat silent, watching the shifting splendor of the sunset. He could see her profile set against the deep-red glow like an intaglio on sard.

"I wonder," she said, "if you have any idea of the many things you've taught me?"

"I?" He almost jumped from his seat. "You're laughing at me."

"You've taught me," she went on, quietly, "how hard and narrow my character has been. You've taught me how foolish a thing pride can be, and how unlovely we can make even that noble thing we call a spirit of independence. You've taught me how big human nature is—how vast and deep and—and good. I don't think I believed in it before. I know I didn't. I thought it was the right thing, the clever thing, to distrust it, to discredit it. I did that. It was because, until I knew you—that is, until I knew you as you are—I had no conception of it—not any more than a peasant who's always starved on barren, inland hills has a conception of the sea."

He was uncomfortable. He was afraid. If she continued to speak like that he might say something difficult to withdraw. He fell back awkwardly on the subject of her father and the job at Stoughton.

"And you won't have to worry about him, Miss Guion, when you're over there in England," he said, earnestly, as he summed up the advantages he had to offer, "because if he's ill, I'll look after him, and if he's very ill, I'll cable. I promise you I will—on my solemn word."

"You won't have to do that," she said, simply, "because I'm going, too."

Again he almost jumped from his chair. "Going, too? Going where?"

"Going to Stoughton with papa."

"But—but—Miss Guion—"

"I'm not going to be married," she continued, in the same even tone. "I thought perhaps Colonel Ashley might have told you. That's all over."

"All over—how?"

"He's been so magnificent—so wonderful. He stood by me during all my trouble, never letting me know that he'd changed in any way—"

"Oh, he's changed, has he?"

Because he sat slightly behind her, she missed the thunderous gloom in his face, while she was too intent on what she was saying to note the significance in his tone.

"Perhaps he hasn't changed so much, after all. As I think it over I'm inclined to believe that he was in love with Drusilla from the first-only my coming to Southsea brought in a disturbing—"

"Then he's a hound! I'd begun to think better of him—I did think better of him—but now, by God, I'll—"

With a backward gesture of the hand, without looking at him, she made him resume the seat from which he was again about to spring.

"No, no. You don't understand. He's been superb. He's still superb. He would never have told me at all if he hadn't seen—"

She stopped with a little gasp.

"Yes? If he hadn't seen—what?"

"That I—that I—I care—for some one else."

"Oh! Well, of course, that does make a difference."

He fell back into the depths of his chair, his fingers drumming on the table beside which he sat. Minutes passed before he spoke again. He got the words out jerkily, huskily, with dry throat.

"Some one—in England?"

"No—here."

During the next few minutes of silence he pulled himself imperceptibly forward, till his elbows rested on his knees, while he peered up into the face of which he could still see nothing but the profile.

"Is he—is he—coming to Stoughton?"

"He's going to Stoughton. He's been there—already."

If there was silence again it was because he dared not frame the words that were on his tongue.

"It isn't—it can't be—?"

Without moving otherwise, she turned her head so that her eyes looked into his obliquely. She nodded. She could utter no more than the briefest syllables. "Yes. It is."

His lips were parched, but he still forced himself to speak. "Is that true?—or are you saying it because—because I put up the money?"

She gathered all her strength together. "If you hadn't put up the money, I might never have known that it was true; but it is true. I think it was true before that—long ago—when you offered me so much—so much!—that I didn't know how to take it—and I didn't answer you. I can't tell. I can't tell when it began—but it seems to me very far back—"

Still bending forward, he covered his eyes with his left hand, raising his right in a blind, groping movement in her direction. She took it in both her own, clasping it to her breast, as she went on:

"I see now—yes, I think I see quite clearly—that that's why I struggled against your help, in the first place.... If it had been anybody else I should probably have taken it at once.... You must have thought me very foolish.... I suppose I was.... My only excuse is that it was something like—like revolt—first against the wrong we had been doing, and then against the great, sublime thing that was coming up out of the darkness to conquer me.... That's the way I felt.... I was afraid.... I wanted something smaller—something more conventional—such as I'd been trained for.... It was only by degrees that I came to see that there were big things to live for—as well as little.... It's all so wonderful!—so mysterious! I can't tell!... I only know that now—"

He withdrew his hand, looking troubled.

"Are you—are you—sure?"

She reflected a minute. "I know what makes you ask that. You think I've changed too suddenly. If so, I can explain it."

The silence in which he waited for her to continue assented in some sort to this reading of his thoughts.

"It isn't that I've changed," she said, at last, speaking thoughtfully, "so much as that I've wakened to a sense of what's real for me as distinguished from what's been forced and artificial. You may understand me better if I say that in leading my life up to—up to recently, I've been like a person at a play—a play in which the situations are interesting and the characters sympathetic, but which becomes like a dream the minute you leave the theater and go home. I feel that—that with you—I've—I've got home."

He would have said something, but she hurried on.

"I've not changed toward the play, except to recognize the fact that it was a play—for me. I knew it the instant I began to learn about papa's troubles. That was like a summons to me, like a call. When it came, everything else—the things I'd been taught to strive for and the people whom I had supposed to be the only ones worth living with, grew distant and shadowy, as though they belonged to a picture or a book. It seemed to me that I woke then for the first time to a realization of the life going on about me here in my own country, and to a sense of my share in it. If I hadn't involved myself so much—and involved some one else with me—my duty would have been clearer from the start. But Colonel Ashley's been so noble!—he's understood me so well!—he's helped me so much to understand myself!—that I can't help honoring him, honoring him with my whole heart, even if I see now that I don't—that I never did—care for him in the way—"

She pressed her handkerchief to her lips to keep back what might have become a sob.

"Did you know I—I loved you?" he asked, still speaking hoarsely.

"I thought you must," she said, simply. "I used to say I hoped you didn't—but deep down in my heart—"

He got up and strode to the window, where, with his back to her, he stared awhile at the last cold glimmer of the sun set. His big frame and broad shoulders shut out the light to such an extent that when he turned it was toward a darkened room. He could barely see her, as she sat sidewise to the desk, an arm along the back of her chair. His attitude bespoke a doubt in his mind that still kept him at a distance.

"You're not—you're not—saying all this," he pleaded, "because you think I've done anything that calls for a reward? I said once that I should never take anything from you, and I never shall—unless it's something you give only because you can't help it."

Her answer was quite prompt. "I'm not giving anything—or doing anything. What has happened seems to me to have come about simply and naturally, like the sunrise or the seasons, because it's the fullness of time and what God means. I can't say more about it than that. If it depended on my own volition I shouldn't be able to speak of it so frankly. But now—if you want me—as you wanted me once—"

She rose and stood by her chair, holding herself proudly and yet with a certain meekness. With his hands clasped behind him, as though even yet he dared not touch her, he crossed the twilit room toward her.

* * * * *

Late that night Henry Guion stood on the terrace below the Corinthian-columned portico. There was no moon, but the stars had the gold fire with which they shine when the sky is violet. Above the horizon a shimmering halo marked the cluster of cities and towns. In the immediate foreground the great elm was leafless now, but for that reason more clearly etched against the starlight—line on line, curve on curve, sweeping, drooping, interlaced. Guion stood with head up and figure erect, as if from strength given back to him. Even through the darkness he displayed some of the self-assurance and stoutness of heart of the man with whom things are going well. He was remembering—questioning—doubting.

"I had come to the end of the end ... and I prayed ... yes, I prayed.... I asked for a miracle ... and the next day it seemed to have been worked.... Was it the prayer that did it?... Was it any one's prayer?... Was it any one's faith?... Was it—God?... Had faith and prayer and God anything to do with it?... Do things happen by coincidence and chance?... or is there a Mind that directs them?... I wonder!... I wonder!..."



THE END